


They revelled in crimson

by cervolina



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: #NovemberAmnesty, #ThePumpkinIsPeople, Alternate Universe, Angst, Cannibalism, Developing Relationship, First Time, Fluff and Angst, Ghosts, Haunted Castle, Kissing, Lots of dialogue, M/M, Resolved Sexual Tension, Supernatural Elements, halloween fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-08-27 19:05:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 36,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8413111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cervolina/pseuds/cervolina
Summary: Will Graham, an American professor and FBI consultant, is on his way to attend a forensic congress in Lithuania when a car break in the middle of nowhere brings him to the doors of an old castle that is known to be haunted. The only inhabitant, a former psychiatrist and the last living member of his family, seems to have a deep interest in keeping Will his guest for as long as possible, and soon the professor discovers that the grounds of the estate hold a very dark secret...





	1. The scythe and the pendulum

**Author's Note:**

> Halloween is almost there! :) And after so much inspiration from all the wonderful Hannictober fics some dark ideas crept into my brain and evolved into this story, which is also my contribution to the #ThePumpkinIsPeople event by Hannibal Cre-ate-ive.  
> This is going to be my second multichapter fic; at the moment I plan for 7 or 8 chapters, but it's all still pretty vague.
> 
> All the love and thanks to my wonderful beta-reader [MissDisoriental](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MissDisoriental) who detects and corrects every single one of my silly mistakes. The remaining ones are my design. ;)

 

The storm had arrived so fast. The sky had been shaded with dark violet for the whole afternoon, but with the sun peeking through the clouds and the air still warm and calm the tempest had seemed to pass by; peacefully watching the scenery of this Sunday in late October.

Now the storm was raging; tossing leaves and branches and playing with them like it could defy gravity altogether. The electricity in the air made the hair on Will’s neck rise as he got out of the car which he’d been forced to pull up by the side of the road to investigate the smouldering bonnet. Even before opening it he could tell there was nothing left to save: The car’s time was up. Angrily he kicked against the driver’s door and looked around to try and ascertain his location. The breakdown had left him stranded on a small country road with acres of forest and fields stretching out in every direction. He’d been driving for over an hour without passing a single township, so he knew he was at least 40 km away from the nearest offshoots of civilization; and according to his navigation system the place where he’d booked a room for the night was another 25 km away. His phone didn’t have a signal either, of course. Shit! Scanning up and down the road, and gloomily reflecting on the fact that he hadn’t passed more than a handful of cars during the course of the past hour, it began to dawn on him that – like it or not – he’d have to spend the night in the car.

The backseat was stacked up to the roof with files and cardboard boxes containing various preparations of preserved organs, anatomical models, bones and other paraphernalia that he needed for his lecture at the Academy. Will silently cursed that he’d agreed to come all this way to Lithuania just to talk to a bunch of disillusioned forensic students about the gruesome details of his work as a crime scene investigator. After years of travelling and lecturing at international congresses he knew the motivation of his audience. Most of them were just there to gloat over the pictures of mutilated bodies he showed them; their glistening eyes only seeing the excitement, not the nightmares those same pictures induced if one were to visit the scenes for real every day. It made Will’s stomach turn when he saw those twenty-something brats whisper to each other in excitement when seeing a shot-through skull and giggle over the picture of a naked female corpse. It was disgusting. In reality they wouldn’t last for longer than three days in a job like his.

However, the lecture was the day after tomorrow and he was still standing next to his broken down car amidst the Lithuanian woods without a place to stay. A low rumbling sound weltered from the north and the wind tugged at his thin jacket. This promised to be an uncomfortable night.

An hour later the rain started; gentle and thin at first and then suddenly it was as if the dams of the Styx had broken and hell’s river was flooding the world with its angry waters. Will had wrapped himself in his blue sweater, but it provided only scarce protection from the cold and without the motor running there was no way to heat up the car. The thermometer told him it was 8°C outside and the temperature would surely sink even lower during the night. With hands white from the cold he rubbed his arms and legs in an attempt to get some warmth into them when he suddenly heard a small humming sound coming from behind above the noise of the storm. Another car.

Within seconds he was out in the rain, waving his arms wildly to urge the driver to stop; and to his relief the other car pulled over, coming to a halt next to him. Behind the steering wheel sat a man of Will’s age with long blond hair and a dirty baseball cap on his head. He wound down the window on the passenger’s side and called out to him in Lithuanian. Will, of course, didn’t understand a word and gestured at his car instead: “Motor – broken. I need help.” Hopefully the man understood at least a bit of English.

After a brief frown the man’s face lightened up.

“Ah, accident. Where from?” His accent was heavy but at least he seemed to have understood that Will was a foreigner.

“Umm, the States. I need a lift to Vilnius. Can you help me?”

The rain soaked Will’s jacket and his hair was stuck to his head. There was no way he could get back into his own car again in this state: his soaking clothes would drench the seat and then the night in the car would be unbearably cold.

It seemed the man needed a moment to process what Will had been trying to tell him, then he slowly shook his head.

“Vilnius wrong direction,” he shouted through the rumbling of the thunder, “but I know where stay, come in, come in!”

Will knew, of course, that it wasn’t safe to get into the cars of strangers. Over the years he’d seen enough examples of what could happen; most of the time the victims were women, but who knew? Will himself wasn’t exactly a person of strong physical stature and the guy looked honed and athletic. Yet a single look at the state of his own car and a bright flash instantly followed by a roll of thunder made the decision for him. He gave the man a signal to wait and hastened through the rain to the trunk of his car to collect a few personal belongings and some dry clothes; hastily wrapping them in a tattered plastic bag. Then he return to the other car and hopped onto the passenger’s seat, closing the door behind him while the man already started the engine.

The night flew by outside the window, the landscape hiding in utter darkness that was only momentarily chased away by flashes of lightning. Will had his fingers clenched on the seat cushion and only when he let go of it did he realize that his hands were trembling. It wasn’t the cold; the car interior was cosily warm. He couldn’t name it, but there was a tension that had gripped him almost since the first moment he’d arrived in Lithuania. It was like an anticipation of something bad that was about to happen; like a sixth sense. He’d experienced these kinds of things before. Sometimes he had the feeling, that his extraordinary ability to empathise transcended the threshold between reality and supernatural. It was ridiculous, of course: Will had never been one to believe in anything irrational, neither God nor ghosts or demons. For him those things were all just fantasies in people’s minds; and this in itself was scary enough. He wouldn’t want to believe the pictures in his own mind to be real. He knew the monsters of the world; had seen their work - and they had all been human.

The driver chuckled when he noticed Will’s nervousness. “Cigarette?” he offered.

Will considered it for a moment. He’d successfully rid himself of his bad smoking habit several years ago and didn’t want to start again this evening; but he had to admit that he craved the momentary relief some deep draws of burned tobacco might provide. Nevertheless he refused and tried to calm his mind by letting his gaze rest in the distance. Apart from the sound of the motor and the occasional thunder growls there was complete silence; the driver hadn’t even turned on the radio. It unsettled Will. During the whole ride in his own car he had flicked through the stations, searching for a channel with a clear signal; but all he got was white noise with occasional scraps of conversation or music, so he’d turned it off again and hummed to himself. Not really melodies, but just sound; something to fill the yawning darkness around him with life.

“Where are we going?” he asked after some minutes, growing slightly uncomfortable with not knowing their destination, even though up to now they’d only followed the road straight.

“Place where you can stay for night,” the other man answered without looking at him.

 “A hotel?”

“No, not hotel. Not far, a house where you can stay.”

Will was bewildered. “But someone is living there, right?”

The man smiled, but it wasn’t a warm smile. His eyes were glistening with excitement. It could be madness in the worst case, or simply eccentricity. Will suddenly became aware of the fact that he was trapped in a stranger’s car without any chance to call for help in case things got out of hand. Where the hell was this guy taking him?

“A man is living there. He is a doctor. He will take care of you.” The smile on the man’s face faded while he spoke and that unsettled Will even more.

“I’m not injured,” he stated in confusion.

The man smiled again. “No, he isn’t working no more. You can stay there.”

Will didn’t know what to make of this rambling explanation, so he looked out of the window again. Behind the trees on the right side of the road a wrought-iron fence had appeared, that seemed to surround a private property. The fence was black and at least two meters high; its intertwined posts made it look like it belonged to a prison courtyard. When the row of high trees suddenly ended Will caught sight of the huge mansion (or was it even a castle?) that sat enthroned in the centre of the now openly visible estate.

With an abrupt swerve the driver pulled over and stopped the car right in front of the huge wrought-iron gate, in the middle of which was a sign proclaiming the owner of the estate: _Lecter Dvaras_ \- The Lecter Castle.

Will darted a questioning glance at the other man. “Is that where I’m supposed to stay?”

“That’s the house,” the stranger confirmed. “You go in and ask for Dr. Lecter. He is a fine man. He will take care of you.”

Will nodded, being seriously relieved to get out of the car and away from this strange guy who spoke in such riddles. He opened the door and was about to step out when suddenly the man grabbed him firmly by the shoulder and leaned over, the grin still on his face.

“But careful, young man. There are ghosts there.”

Will frowned. “Do you mean it’s haunted?”

“Yes, yes, haunted,” the man nodded in excitement. “There are ghosts. Careful, careful you be!”

Then he gave a guttural laugh and Will was determined to get away from him as fast as possible.

“Yes, I’ll be careful, thank you for the ride,” he replied hastily, then grabbed the bag with his belongings and slammed the car door behind him. He didn’t turn round when the car was swallowed by darkness again. Instead he hurried towards the gate, trying to ignore the last thing the stranger had told him. _Haunted_. Such nonsense.

 

♠♣♥♦

 

Will expected the gate to creak when pushing it open, but the hinges appeared to be well oiled. The lawn was neatly mowed, with every flowerbed symmetrical and the cobblestones on the small path to the entrance door refusing to let even a single tuft of grass peak through. It was obvious that the property was inhabited.

On approaching the house it looked more and more to Will like an actual castle: annexes and little towers appeared from behind the huge conifers, shaping the image of something recycled from a child’s fairytale. It looked enchanted, but not in a romantic way. Maybe it was just the weather and the darkness, but he expected the whole building to shape shift at any moment and turn into the kind of houses that haunted his nightmares. Those in which one finds dead bodies. _Haunted_. There was the word again, and Will could fully understand why it must look that way to a stranger. His natural instincts alone told him not to set foot into that castle and those were the natural instincts of a disbeliever. They would not make him turn around and leave again, but potent as they were, they would certainly be capable of driving away a mind receptive to the supernatural.

As scrupulously well-kept as the whole building was, here and there small branches of ivy still crawled their way out of crevices in the wall in places that were unreachable from both the inside and out. It was a nice piece of wildness in a surrounding so utterly controlled. In fact Will found it rather charming.

The dark wooden door was adorned with a heavy silver knocker, but there was also a modern bell push on the wall next to the door. Will couldn’t decide which one to use, so he used both at the same time.

He didn’t know what he had expected to see when the door opened. A servant perhaps (this place certainly looked like it was run by at least a dozen of them); or a creepy old lady with a candle in her hand and a black cat nuzzling around her feet; or maybe nobody at all and the door opening by itself with a creaking sound. In that moment his brain would have been able to cope with any of these scenarios. What he certainly didn’t expect was a tall, middle aged man, wearing an apron and holding a spatula in his hand, while the smell of roasting meat surged through the open door. Will was utterly perplexed.

The man looked at him questioningly, although he didn’t seem to be taken aback by Will’s unheralded appearance.

“Taip?” he asked.

It took Will a moment to find his words. “I’m sorry. I am...Do you speak English? My car is broken down and I got here so...” At the last moment he stopped himself from saying _“so you could take care of me”_ That would have capped all his embarrassment off.

The other man observed his face for a moment and Will had the uncomfortable, but very familiar feeling, of being judged. The shimmer in those eyes was so intense that Will had an urge to turn his face away.

“Do you... Can I spend the night here somewhere? I can pay for it, of course.” Will couldn’t even be sure the other man understood him, but his growing awkwardness with the whole situation made him ramble on. “It’s just that there’s no other place round here for miles and the weather makes a night in the car very uncomfortable.”

He waited for a reaction, and was almost at the point where he wished to fade away like a ghost himself, when suddenly a smile appeared on the man’s face.

“Be my guest,” he said, the English consonants slightly contoured by his accent. He then turned round and held the door open, signalling Will to follow him inside before he asked: “And what is your name?”

Awkwardly, Will realised that he’d failed to introduce himself. “My name is Will Graham, I’m from the States and I'm here in Lithuania for - professional reasons,” he answered. What profession it was he rather kept secret for now. He didn't like it if people he barely knew asked him about his job; it was quite difficult to explain and most of the time it only led to overly curious questions.

“Welcome, Mr. Graham,” his host replied. “My name is Dr. Hannibal Lecter. I own this estate.”

“What kind of doctor are you?” Will asked and then realised how stupid that sounded.

The other gave an amused smile. “I’m a psychiatrist, but I stopped practising years ago.”

Will just nodded; he was aware that he hadn’t made the best first impression and apparently talking made it worse.

The corridor Dr. Lecter was leading him through was dimly lit. The walls were covered in mahogany wood-panelling and the floor was tiled in a pattern of continuously alternating black and white. It gave Will the feeling of walking over a gigantic chessboard. He remembered a game he played with his classmates when he was a kid. They would play tag in the school hall, which was also tiled in black and white, during their lunch break. They would form two teams, team white and team black, and then elect catchers for each team to catch the members of the opposing one, but during the game everybody was only allowed to step on the tiles of his group’s colour. Those who took a misstep were out. The team whose catcher first caught all the members of the other team won. The tiles had often been slippery when the janitor had cleaned the hall and one time Will slipped, fell and almost broke his nose. The other kids had laughed.

This corridor however didn’t look as if any children had used it for their silly games. Will’s steps echoed from the wall; Dr. Lecter’s on the other hand, had the silent tread of a stalking panther.

Will followed him up the stairs on the right and down another, less chessboard-patterned, corridor. They didn’t exchange a word, nor did Dr. Lecter turn around to look at him and Will almost suspected the other man had forgotten about him when they abruptly came to a halt. Hannibal opened a door to his right, flicked on the light switch, and beckoned Will to enter the room.

“You can spend the night here; it is one of the various guestrooms, of which this house has no lack of,” he said with a small smile.

The chamber was generously appointed for a guest room; but in a house like this, what was one to expect? A king-size bed awaited Will on the opposite side of the room, with a counterpane of cornflower blue. On the wall above the bed hung a huge set of antlers which were very dark, almost black, with shiny white tips. Next to the bed a huge grandfather clock stood majestically in the corner; its heavy pendulum swinging at a steady, silent pace. There were many more pieces of antique furniture, like a dark wooden davenport and several book shelves. On the back wall was a door leading to another room; a bathroom, probably. Everything in the room was clean and arranged very neatly, as if a guest had been expected.

“Do you often have guests here?” Will asked, realising again that he might sound rude in being so straightforward.

“Occasionally yes, but at the moment I’m alone here,” Dr. Lecter answered, undisturbed by his guest’s somewhat awkward manners.

Will stepped closer to the bed and ran the tip of his index finger over the counterpane. It was made of silk and felt like he was stroking cool water.  Will had to fight the sudden urge to lie down and bury his face in it; after days of travel and bad sleep this bed called to him like a silent siren.

“Is it to your liking?”

Will jumped slightly, having almost forgotten that the other man was still in the room.

“It’s perfect, thank you so much, Dr. Lecter!”

“Please, call me Hannibal.”

Hannibal. _Wasn’t that the guy that had crossed the Alps with elephants?_ Will wondered if this was his real name or if he was just a history fanatic with a fascination for rebels who had decided to take on an alias.

“Alright – Hannibal,” Will replied, rolling the word on his tongue. It sounded strange, but still familiar. Something... its sound reminded him of something...something similar, something else. “So I guess you can call me Will.”

Hannibal nodded. “I will leave you to yourself now, Will, so you can freshen up. And I advise you to change your clothes. You will catch a cold in those; I can lend you some if you require it.”

“No, no, it’s quite alright,” Will replied hastily, not wanting to cause any further trouble. “I’ve got something to change into. You’ve already been so generous, I’ll be fine here.”

“Alright then; if there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to ask.” Hannibal smiled softly; and Will noticed that his eyes were of a rich mahogany brown, just like the walls in the entrance hall. “You are invited to join me for a glass of wine in the parlour later, if you like. It is downstairs: the first door on the left.”

With these words Hannibal turned around and left the room, gently closing the door behind him.

It took Will a few moments to mentally review what had happened during the past few hours; from the moment he noticed the smoke coming from the bonnet until Dr. Lecter ( _Hannibal_ ) left him with the invitation for a glass of wine.

He put down his bag and took off his soaked jacket, realising the water had seeped through each layer of clothing to his skin, and possibly even through this. It felt like there was not a single part of him that wasn’t utterly drenched. He opened the door to the bathroom and his eyes brightened at the sight of a huge white bathtub with silvery metal feet and a fluffy white bathrobe hanging over the rim. This was far more luxurious than what would have awaited him at the hotel and suddenly Will felt very happy about the outcome of the evening – despite the broken car.

The water was fantastically hot and the bath essence smelled of lavender and heather; like an extract taken from the landscape around the estate; the fresh and pure wilderness of Aukštaitija. Will closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, enveloped up to his chin in the water. It was heaven. Then he was suddenly struck by an uncomfortable thought that Hannibal would probably expect him to pay for his accommodation; yet he didn’t have much money with him and it was the end of the month, so his bank account was naturally low. All of this seemed pretty expensive. What if he couldn’t afford it?

The thought made him nervous and so he got out of the bath sooner than intended. While he rubbed himself dry the silence of the room was suddenly interrupted by a sharp sound, like a scythe cutting through air. Will paused to listen. There – again! It came from his bedroom.

Will tied the towel round his waist and walked towards the door on tiptoes, his ears straining for the smallest sound. The noise came again and again, setting into a steady pace of sharp swinging sounds. Very careful not to make a sound he slowly turned the doorknob.

The moment he pushed open the door the sound stopped immediately; as if he’d caught the room red-handed. Everything looked exactly like the moment he had left it half an hour ago. The contents of his bag were spread over the bed, the window was ajar and the curtains billowed gently in the breeze; the moonlight bleaching all the colours pale.

Just there, in the corner, the old grandfather clock stood dark and bulky, its pendulum swinging from side to side; gently and quietly, without a sound, the edges of it sharp like a blade. It reminded Will of a verse from _The Pit and the Pendulum_ by Edgar Allan Poe; an author whose vivid imagination had been an inspiration for most of his nightmares when he was younger. _‘_ _To the right -- to the left -- far and wide -- with the shriek of a damned spirit; to my heart with the stealthy pace of the tiger’_

Will felt a cold shiver creeping up his spine. He suddenly craved company, of any kind. Hadn’t Hannibal invited him for a glass of wine in the parlour? Hectically and with his hands still slightly shaking he pulled on some dry clothes and hurried downstairs.


	2. And her eyes so sad

The parlour was easy to find, separated from the hall by a row of windows and an elegant swing door through which warm light fell into the corridor in which Will was approaching. In his urge to get out of his eerie room he’d only thrown on a sweater and a pair of worn-out jeans, not taking the time to consider adapting his appearance to the elegant standard of the house which was clearly set by Hannibal.

Will found the latter sitting in front of the fireplace, still dressed in his suit and with a glass of wine by his side. He looked up when Will entered the room, a faint smile flitting over his face. “Ah, I see you came to join me. That is a pleasant surprise; I thought you might have gone to bed already.”

“No, not yet. I thought maybe some company would be good for me.”

Will tried his best not to let his inner agitation show and took a seat in one of the wingback chairs that were placed around the table in front of the fireplace. Hannibal himself was sitting on a huge cushion on the floor, which Will thought was a strange position to find him in, even though he barely knew the man. His whole appearance – his graceful way of moving around and the fact that he literally lived in a castle that was stacked up to the roof with fine furniture – hardly struck Will as traits of a character that would deny himself the comfort of an upholstered chair in favour of crouching on the floor.

On his knees Hannibal had propped up a large sketchbook. The page it was opened on showed the figure of a young woman in her mid-twenties. Her flowing hair surrounded her sharp angular face like a bright aura. She was beautiful.

“Did you draw that?” Will asked.

Hannibal smiled at the admiring tone. “Yes. I like studying the female form. It holds such grace.”

“This looks like the work of a professional artist,” Will replied, leaning forward to observe the woman’s face more closely. Her sharp cheekbones and the curved shape of her lips looked similar to Hannibal’s, though her eyes were different. They were bright with a hint of sadness that even her smile couldn’t hide. “Are you?” Will asked after a pause. “A professional, I mean?”

“No, I never really was, although there were times when I drew more for the public,” Hannibal replied, totally focused on sharpening his carbon pencil while talking. “As a younger man I studied art for a while. I went to Florence to see the works of the Old Masters and to learn from their style – and soon began to adopt some of their techniques for creating my own designs – which turned out to be quite different from theirs, in many ways. Nevertheless art always remained just a hobby for me; I never considered taking it up as my profession. Occasionally I exhibit in galleries or sell the pictures to people who take interest in my art. Most of my works however I keep safe in my private sketchbooks, for only my eyes to see.”

“It’s really stunning,” Will admitted. Her glance stirred something inside him, although he wasn’t entirely sure if it was fear or not: little more than the hint of a memory rooted deep inside his brain; nudging and teasing, but staying concealed and refusing to take on a tangible form.

 “Thank you Will,” Hannibal replied, obviously pleased by the appreciation his guest had granted him. “Would you like a glass of wine? I have just opened a bottle of _Grand Listrac_ , vintage 2011; dark but not too heady.”

Will briefly considered refusing, as he didn’t actually like wine all that much, but then he hadn’t had the opportunity to drink a fine wine in years, so maybe it was time to give it one more try? So he nodded in response and Hannibal began pouring him a glass, its aroma instantly filling the air. The smell of it alone went to Will’s head and he could already feel the headache starting. “Thank you,” he murmured nevertheless; not taking a sip at first, but just letting the glass sway in his grip.

“So, Will,” Hannibal continued after he’d finally taken a seat in the chair across from Will’s own. “Tell me a bit about yourself. What do you enjoy doing in your free time?”

Will couldn’t suppress a small snort. He hadn’t had any real free time for months; instead trying to keep his mind awake during the day – when he spent hours at crime scenes, letting the emotions of the criminals wash over him – and then attempting to fall asleep at night without being tormented by  the gruesome images that had been accrued there. Sometimes he failed doing both, sometimes just doing the latter; but whichever way one looked at Will’s life, there was no space or time for the type of activities that normal people did in their leisure hours, like sketching or dancing or going to the cinema. Not that he missed things like that. He had his pack of dogs (seven at the moment) with which he liked spending his evenings in front of the TV. They kept him company without expecting anything and never asked questions or worried about his mental stability like most of the people in his life did. He’d always preferred them to a family of humans and most of the time he believed he was quite happy like this.

“I - well , I have some dogs,” Will began to explain, fearing he might sound stupid again. But then Hannibal didn’t mind his social awkwardness earlier, did he? “Sometimes I like to repair motors: boat motors, car motors, just something technical that I can take apart and put back together again. Something logical and easy.”

“So you are more a man of logic than of art and emotion,” Hannibal said, folding his hands in his lap. Will suddenly felt like he was sitting in one of those therapy sessions he’d attended for a while during his teen years to get a grip on his social anxiety. He’d hated the sessions and it hadn’t helped anyway.

“Although in some ways,” Hannibal continued, “I believe you are quite emotional, aren’t you? Quite – receptive for emotion.”

Will began to feel uncomfortable. He always found it unsettling when people were able to see into his mind in the same way he could see into theirs. It felt like stepping in front of a mirror, and he hated mirrors. They always showed the truth and the truth was ugly.

“Are you trying to analyse me, Dr. Lecter?” he asked with a frown, still gently slewing the glass of wine in his hand.

The other man curled his lips into a smile. It was the smile of somebody who had just been caught red-handed – and who liked it.

“Forgive me, Will. It’s an old habit, I’m afraid. There are some things one cannot let go of, even after being out of the active field for years. I’m far too fascinated by the fabric of the human mind to relinquish any opportunity to explore it; but I can understand that some people find that unsettling. Be assured that I never meant to make you feel uncomfortable.”

“It’s alright,” Will said, lowering his gaze to the blood-red wine. “I can see what you mean. For most people the difficult thing is to look and for others it’s not to look.”

A smile spread across Hannibal’s face. “I see you are familiar with the kind of work I’m doing; or rather have done. Tell me, are you working for the police maybe?”

Will flinched. How could he -? He couldn’t possibly know, could he? Will tried to recall whether he maybe had mentioned it, but that couldn’t be the case. He’d only just arrived a few hours ago and he hadn’t given Hannibal any information about himself except for his name, his nationality and the fact that his car was broken. He hadn’t even mentioned the congress, had he? So how could he know?

The confusion must have shown on Will’s face, because Hannibal’s triumphant smile grew even wider.

“It was merely a lucky guess,” he added after a pause. “ Your stature is the one of a man who needs to stay strong in the face of the ugliness his everyday life presents him with. You have the resolution of a warrior and the patience of a cat luring a mouse. All these traits qualify you perfectly for a job in the police force. Though you are not an ordinary policeman, are you? Your specification is quite – uncommon. The FBI maybe?”

For a few moments Will was tempted to simply stand up and walk straight out of the room. There was clearly something wrong with this man; nobody could deduce this from his appearance alone. For a moment Will wondered if he might have hinted at it without knowing, or maybe there was something showing it? He looked down at himself to see if he had a button or something stuck to his clothes that said: _‘I’m Will Graham, FBI-profiler, empathically gifted and easily unsettled by people of a similar insight into the human mind. Don’t worry about my reluctance to tell you about myself, I don’t mind you psychoanalysing me at all.’_ But there was no such sign.

Hannibal gave a hearty laugh. “That was another lucky shot, I see. Now I seem to have really unsettled you. I’m truly sorry. I can fully understand if you don’t wish me to continue my analysis. May I still ask you to raise your glass with me? I see you haven’t touched your wine yet.”

Will raised his glass to make it clink with Hannibal’s and then took a sip. The wine was aromatic and a little bitter; in fact far more bitter than he remembered red wine to be and he left it at that single sip. Then his gaze fell to the sizzling fire that mesmerizingly danced over the charred logs: he also had a fireplace at home; smaller and less decorative than this one, but still spacious enough to provide him with a constant cosy warmth during the winter months when his electric heater stopped working every once in a while.

After some minutes he realised that Hannibal was watching him. Had he been doing this the whole time? His eyes were softly resting on Will’s face, the faint remains of his earlier smile still evident on the upturned corners of his lips.

“Would you mind if I sketched you, Will?”

That was an unexpected request. Will had no idea how to react to it. His brain wasn’t even able to summon up an actual response, being far too engaged in asking ‘ _Why the hell does he want to do that?’_ over and over again.

Hannibal waited patiently for an answer, still studying Will’s face.

“Why...umm... why would you want to sketch me?” Will finally managed to ask.

“You have a strong body and quite a handsome face,” Hannibal replied without reservation. “Your features are soft, but still well-defined, and I haven’t had the opportunity to study the male form for a while. However, if you prefer, I can, of course, just draw your face for now.”

Will suddenly felt himself reminded of a certain scene in _Titanic_ , which made the thought of being drawn in a full body portrait an unpleasant one. Also he didn’t feel that his physique was particularly worthy of studying.

“Just my face please,” he murmured a bit shyly. All the same he couldn’t entirely keep himself from feeling flattered about Hannibal’s comments on his appearance.

“Certainly, Will. My pleasure.” Hannibal turned the page of the sketchbook; taking another intense look at Will’s face before beginning to sketch the outlines of his head.

“Am I supposed to take up a particular position or...?” Will asked.

“No, just don’t move too much. Otherwise it will be hard for me to catch the position of light and shadow on your features.”

Will, whom the whole situation had left bewildered, watched quietly as the first few lines on the paper morphed into the shape of a slightly angular face. He’d watched people drawing before, but Hannibal’s style was different. Most people seemed to scrabble over the paper a hundred times before they found the right line, which eventually resulted in an authentic, but wildly over-worked version of the studied object. Hannibal, however, seemed to know the precise position of each line before even setting the pencil down, as if the image was already there and he only had to uncover it. His lines were fine and sharp, the pencil darting in swift movements and his eyes switching back and forth between Will’s face and its depiction in the sketchbook.

Eyebrows, eyes, lips and the tip of a nose took form on the paper, already looking familiar. Will couldn’t deny that it was oddly satisfying to be observed so thoroughly, even it was something he’d normally be opposed to. Perhaps it was because Hannibal’s eyes were studying, not judging; just seeing and acknowledging. Will’s lips curled into a smile and so did Hannibal’s.

“Do you draw all of your guests?” Will asked curiously.

“No,” Hannibal responded while outlining the shape of Will’s eyes, “just the ones that prove themselves worthy of my attention.

“So I guess I did. Prove myself worthy, that is,” Will concluded, mesmerized by the speed of Hannibal’s sketching.

“You did,” Hannibal confirmed, running a critical glance over his work. “Now,” he added, “you may decide whether to be depicted with the glasses you wore when you arrived or without them.”

Only then did Will remember leaving his glasses on the nightstand in his room before taking a bath. He didn’t necessarily need them - his eyes weren’t that bad - but after a while without them he often got headaches, so they had become a part of his appearance. Not least because they provided something to hide behind; a wall between him and the rest of the world.

“You can add them in,” Will agreed, “if you can remember their shape.”

Hannibal just smiled again and with some further deft pencil strokes had added a perfect depiction of Will’s spectacles to the drawing.

A long, comfortable silence followed, in which the faint scratching of pencil on paper and the crackling of the fire created a cosy atmosphere that almost gave Will the feeling of home. Almost.

“You didn’t drink your wine, Will. Is it not to your liking?” Hannibal suddenly asked without looking up, being far too focused on defining the shape of Will’s lips.

“Oh, umm, no it’s...it’s great. I’m just not used to drinking alcohol,” Will replied, trying not to sound ungrateful. It was a lie however. He sometimes drank whiskey when he came home after visiting a particularly grim crime scene and then most of the time he didn’t stop after one glass.

“Take your time,” came the calm response.

Will took another sip, just as bitter as the first, and then placed his glass on the table in front of him. Maybe if he just left it there Hannibal would forget about it?

In that moment the latter suddenly stood up and stretched his legs with a small cracking sound. “Excuse me for a moment, Will. I’ll be back soon.” Then he left the parlour and disappeared into the darkness of the hall, probably paying the bathroom a visit. Will took the opportunity to get rid of the rest of the wine by rising from his chair, walking over the fireplace and pouring the red liquid into the flames which fizzled briefly at the contact.

When Hannibal returned, Will had taken his place in the winged chair again; his empty wine glass placed on the table in front of him. Hannibal raised an eyebrow in slight disbelief. “I see you’ve acquired a taste for it finally.”

“Well yeah, once you start, you know,” Will said casually, trying to hide the unease that came from the quiet realisation that Hannibal didn’t believe him.

However the latter made no reference to it, merely sat down on the cushion and began to draw again. Once in while he would ask Will questions about his job and the reason he’d come to Lithuania. Will described his role at the Academy and the congress he was about to attend while omitting the gruesome details of his daily work. He didn’t want to unsettle his host by describing mutilated corpses and the nightmares they gave him.

In the course of their conversation Will’s answers became shorter and shorter due to a sense of leaden fatigue that he could feel spreading out in his limbs. The day had been a long one and it was already past midnight, so a certain level of tiredness was natural, but this one seemed to bring him down entirely. It was as if the room got darker and darker with every breath he drew. The firelight grew pale and the edges of his vision began to blur. He felt far too weak to stand up or even attempt to articulate his condition. When he gave a small grunting sound Hannibal lifted his eyes from the sketchbook.

“Are you feeling tired, Will? Maybe you should go to bed; it’s been a long day for you.”

Will wanted to nod, but realised his head was too heavy and then the last thing he felt was his chin sinking down onto his chest before a deep darkness embraced him.

 

♠♣♥♦

 

Will awoke again later with a dry mouth, an ugly headache throbbing behind his temples, and absolutely no indication of how much time had passed since his black-out in the parlour. The room around him lay in utter darkness and for a moment Will panicked at the thought that he might have become blind. It was an irrational yet persistent fear that had troubled him since childhood. Back then he’d always needed a night-light placed next to his bedroom door; not because he wouldn’t have been able to find the exit without it, but to reassure himself that his eyesight was still intact when he woke up with a jolt from an inevitable nightmare: that the gruesome sight of his nightly visions hadn’t blinded him in their ghastliness. These pictures in his mind had always been haunting him, ever since he was very small. His brilliant, disturbing imagination: a blessing for his work; a curse for his mental stability.

Now, being an adult of almost forty years, he didn’t use a night-light anymore, of course; but without the door ajar, or a small gap between the drawn curtains through which the moonlight could shine in, he wasn’t able to fall asleep.

In an attempt to calm down his racing heart he tried to gather information about his surroundings. The surface under his back was soft and the thin sheets that were draped over him gave strong indications that he was lying in a bed. The bed with the cornflower blue counterpane... the room in the castle...

Oh god. Had Hannibal _put him to bed_??

He must have; there was no other explanation for how Will could have ended up here after falling asleep in the chair by the fireplace. With a groan he pulled a corner of the sheets over his face. This was beyond embarrassing. He briefly played out several scenarios in his mind of how he could escape the castle unseen before morning, but they were all ridiculous. He could hardly just leave through the window. He was a grown man, and he at least owed Hannibal an apology. What an awful guest he was!

The feeling of cool metal on his wrist reminded him that he was still wearing his watch, which fortunately had a display light. It told Will that it was half past four in the morning. Great. That meant he had at least four more hours to lie awake and think about the utter embarrassment a confrontation with Hannibal was going to bring. Maybe if Will offered to pay a sum of money for the room Hannibal would forgive him his rude behaviour? Although admittedly the doctor didn’t struck him as the kind of person to whom money meant a great deal. He rather seemed to be one of those people who didn’t bother about fortune because they already had it; they had so much of it that it would never fade and therefore they didn’t aspire for more. The man owned a goddamn castle; he probably preferred it if his guests paid him tribute in terms of respect and manner rather than in cash. Unfortunately, Will couldn’t actually offer either of them.

Totally preoccupied in his thoughts, he wasn’t aware of the steps on the staircase outside his room. Wasn’t aware that someone was approaching the door that was left ajar; someone not wearing shoes. Someone who wanted to stay quiet: sneaking, unheard, unseen. But not unarmed.

And he wouldn’t have noticed the person entering the room, walking over to his bed with a silent stread. Wouldn’t have felt the person’s breath on his skin when his intruder was leaning down to listen if Will was awake. The night would have come to a quite different end – were it not for the sound of the scythe.

Sharp and steady cutting through the air: taking up all the silence in the room and making Will jump into alertness at once. He jolted up in the bed, his trembling arms barely keeping him upright while his eyes were fixed on the corner in which the grandfather clock stood, though he couldn’t see it.

And then, exactly where Will assumed the pendulum to be, a small light flickered up. It was milky and pale, like a candle in the fog. It grew bigger and bigger, glowing silvery from within and slowly assuming a shape. It was the figure of a little girl, sitting on the swinging pendulum; her eyes closed and her head swinging slightly from side to side with the momentum. Will held his breath, afraid to blow her away with the exhale. She seemed so thin and fragile, like a whisper.

_Haunted._

The girl on the pendulum slowly lifted her head, her eyelids fluttering open, and their gazes met. Will was not prepared for the ultimate sadness he’d find in them. These child’s eyes, so full of horror. They told him that she had seen what he’d only dreamed of when he was her age; that she had experienced what mankind was capable of. She was wearing invisible scars and her fragile body, wrapped in a thin dress, seemed to shake from a cold Will couldn’t feel.

But what he felt was the deep, all encompassing urge to hold her: to hug her tight and stroke over her feathery hair and tell her that she would be alright. But the ghost girl just blinked at him once more, a small tear running down to the tip of her nose, before she faded away into nothing, taking all the light with her as she vanished.

Nothing remained but the steady rhythm of the pendulum cutting through the air. And with every swing, sleep tugged at Will until he finally gave in.

Someone outside the door was listening; his hand resting on the doorknob, but not daring to enter. After a moment, the person turned and went away on tiptoes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's how it begins... ;) Thanks for your kudos and comments so far! I really enjoy writing this story and will try to update on a regular basis as far as I can manage it. ;)


	3. The hunter and the haunted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the next one is beta-ed by the lovely [TheSilverQueen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSilverQueen). Thank you so much for your help! *throws flowers*

In the light of the next morning, the events of the previous night were nothing but a shadow in Will’s memory. Still hovering between the state of wake and sleep he relived the scene in his head, and even though the images were blurred, everything in his mind and heart screamed at him that it had been real. The girl with the sad eyes; she’d been there, sitting on the pendulum in her thin dress and feathery hair. When Will finally managed to open his eyes that were still bearing the weight of a restless night, he instantly looked at the pendulum. It was still swinging from side to side, quiet and regular.

While shaving and getting dressed Will pondered whether to tell Hannibal about the ghost of the girl or not. Would such a story even surprise him? He was living in a castle that was obviously known to be haunted, if one was to believe the words of the truck driver; so maybe Hannibal even expected Will to see the girl? Or, which was likewise possible, all the ghost stories about this castle annoyed Hannibal to death because he himself had maybe never seen one.

On his way downstairs to the dining room it suddenly dawned on Will: It was all a trick, right? A technical device installed in the clock that made the scythe-like sounds and let the figure of a little girl appear. A hologram perhaps? Today there were all sorts of things possible if one had access to the technical possibilities. And access mostly meant nothing more than money, which Hannibal certainly had no lack of. Or, even more simple: it could have been a hallucination; drug induced perhaps – the wine. Hadn’t the wine tasted extraordinarily bitter and made him so very, very tired? It made all sense now. How had he been so stupid to believe the girl was a ghost? Such a simple and old trick and he’d honestly believed he’d finally accessed the world of the supernatural! Ridiculous, really! But Will would not fall for this charade a second time; from now on he would neither eat nor drink anything Hannibal served him without having witnessed the preparation process from beginning to end.

The question that remained was, of course: Why? Why drug one’s guest just to make him see ghosts? Was it some sort of psycho-game of the retired therapist to induce fear and horror in people and watch them go crazy over things their mind couldn’t explain? Was Will’s presence nothing but an amusement to him? A fine game to play and to keep his brilliant mind busy since there were no real patients anymore to deceive? Whatever sick game this was, Will was not in the mood to play it. He would leave this strange place right after breakfast and then not return to Lithuania for a very long time.

With this decision made he entered the dining room.

 

♠♣♥♦

 

At the sight of the richly set table, presenting a large variation of breakfast meals, including scrambled eggs, bread, a plate of smoked ham and sausages and a delicious looking vegetable quiche, Will was almost tempted to throw his intentions not to eat over board. May the ghosts come and haunt him.

In this moment Hannibal entered, carrying a large porcelain teapot and a can of milk. He smiled at his guest and bid him a good morning, which Will returned with a murmur.

When Hannibal began pouring him tea, Will refused determinately: “No, thank you, I don’t think I will eat or drink anything this morning. I have a horrible headache; the wine probably.”

Hannibal raised his eyebrows, almost in a huff. “Was there something wrong with the wine?”

“No, there wasn’t,” Will assured him. ”Not to offend you, honestly. I just don’t have a high tolerance for alcohol in general and red wine often gives me headaches – and trouble sleeping,” he muttered.

Hannibal kept a straight face, but his lips twitched momentarily at Will’s last comment, which to Will was a clear proof that he was perfectly aware something had happened during the night-time. Must be quite the fun for the doctor, Will thought: preparing breakfast for guests and waiting for them to appear on the threshold, overtired and frightened, but too ashamed to talk about their strange experiences for the fear of being made fun of. And then pouring them coffee and talking and hinting and observing their reactions.

At least Hannibal didn’t seem to be inclined to mention that he’d (most probably) carried Will to bed after his pass-out in the parlour, and Will was grateful for that.

“What a pity!” the doctor finally said while pouring himself a cup of tea. “I’ve prepared a full breakfast for us, assuming that you were very hungry after your exhausting day yesterday.”

“I’m really sorry, it all looks very delicious,” Will sighed, rubbing his hand over his face in feigned suffering, “and I hate to reject all of your efforts, but I’m afraid I must leave rather sooner than later. There are still some things to be done for my lecture tomorrow and I need to get to my hotel.”

“I thought your car was broken,” Hannibal reminded him while filling his plate with eggs and sausage.

“Yes... I should call a mechanic to see to it, I guess,” Will had to admit that this could thwart his plan to leave the castle as soon as possible. The fact that it was a rented car didn’t help either. He hoped not to be charged for whatever caused the motor to start smouldering out of a sudden; not to mention the costs of having the vehicle towed almost 30 km to the next car repair.

“I can call one if you like,” Hannibal offered. “And in return you at least try some of the food. I don’t want you to leave on an empty stomach.”

Will agreed by nodding silently and Hannibal stood up to get the phone.

“Can I get you a glass of water at the least?” he asked on his way out.

“I can get me one myself, thank you,” Will replied, almost ashamed for denying his host even this simple request.

When he was sure Hannibal was gone, he hastily snatched some pieces of sausage and egg from Hannibal’s plate, then carefully replaced them with fresh ones. He bolted down the stolen food – dropping the pieces onto his plate beforehand to make it look used – and hoped that it was safe to eat from Hannibal’s plate. He wouldn’t drug himself, would he? The tea however, Will left untouched. Instead he hurried to the kitchen on the opposite side of the corridor to get himself a glass of tap water. He could hear Hannibal next door, speaking to someone on the phone in Lithuanian.

The hospitality and care with which he’d been welcomed and treated by the doctor stood in such a stark contrast of what Will was accusing him of that for the first time he began to question his prejudice towards the man. Maybe he hadn’t been drugged. Maybe he was imagining all of it; after all this wasn’t the first time he’d seen something akin to a ghost. Although admittedly it had been caused by his illness the last time. Could it be that...? Will panicked for a short moment and hectically pressed one palm to his forehead to feel the temperature, but soon was relieved with the awareness that he wasn’t fevering. So either the ghost was real or – far more likely – Hannibal was playing with him; despite his efforts and pretending to care for Will’s wellbeing.

In that moment Hannibal emerged from the other room that seemed to be some kind of study.

“I’ve reached a mechanic who’s going to take a look at the car. He should arrive in about an hour. We then can take my car to get to the place where you left yours.”

Will took a sip from his glass in order to escape Hannibal’s intense glance that always felt like it went through and through.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

“Have you eaten something?” Hannibal inquired. “I also have painkillers here to treat your headache.”

“That is all so incredibly kind of you,” Will replied “but I think it would be best if I just lay down for a while.”

Hannibal nodded. “I will wake you on time.”

 

♠♣♥♦

 

Will didn’t get much rest, for the mechanic arrived earlier than expected. The ride to the place where Will’s broken car lay seemed to be much shorter this time than the night before, even though Will recognised the landscape by the shape of the hills and various lakes they passed. Hannibal hadn’t turned on the radio and they didn’t talk much either, but somehow it was so much more comfortable for Will to have him by his side. He wasn’t used to being cared for; not used to being listened to either (unless it was forced upon people, like the students that frequented his lectures). This companionable silence that he knew he could break at any time, but genuinely didn’t want to, felt really soothing and made Will realise how badly he actually needed someone to share some silence with in his life. There were enough people to talk to; not remotely enough who cared to listen.

After mere seconds of checking the motor, the mechanic raised his head and then slowly shook it; telling the other two men unambiguously that the car was irreparably damaged. Will had already suspected it, but was still a very inconvenient turnout and undoubtedly meant a delay in his departure from the castle.

“I can lend you my car for the time of the congress,” Hannibal offered. It was generous, but not entirely so if one considered what it entailed. The condition was unspoken, but there all the same: _“If you stay.”_

Will had considered taking a cab to his hotel, but there was no way he’d be able to transport all the preserved organs and models plus his personal belongings with a cab. He definitely needed a private car; so he accepted the offer.

Hannibal seemed to be extremely pleased with Will’s decision and even helped him transfer all his stuff from the broken car to his own before the wreckage was towed away by the called wrecking service. Will didn’t even want to imagine how much this whole venture would cost him in the end; the fee for the room, which Hannibal most certainly would demand, not even included.

The ride back was decidedly less comfortable.

♠♣♥♦

 

Hannibal found Will in the study later, brooding over his lecture script for the congress. On the table before him Will had spread out his collection of preserved tissues sections. They were pressed between thin glass plates in a vacuum; prepared to outlast decades of being study objects for thousands of students.

“I see you are very busy,” Hannibal assumed while closing up the distance to the table with a slight pep in his step that indicated a forthcoming suggestion.

“I’m done here; well, almost. Just trying to get rid of my nervousness by going through the whole thing all over again. It won’t help anyway.” Will sighed. He ran a finger over the paper, feeling the asperity caused by the pressure of the pen. He’d held this speech a dozen times already, but the nervousness hadn’t faded.

“I just wanted to inform you that I’m going to take a short walk over the premises. You are welcome to join me if you like. It may clear your head a bit,” Hannibal suggested.

Standing next to Will now he picked up a glass containing a tissue sample of a shot-through heart wall and carefully observed it. “A wound like this must have caused heavy bleeding leading to an immediate death,” he reckoned. The whole lower half of the sample was in tatters.

“It was undeniably fatal, yes,” Will agreed. “A death within seconds rather than minutes.” He yawned and stood up from his chair to stretch his limbs.

“What an – inelegant death.”

“Yeah, pretty ugly, but then every murder is.”

Hannibal raised his eyebrows. “You think so?”

Will stopped to look at him. “It’s always such a mess! All the blood and pain; even the silent ones like poisoning scream of hate and horror. There is no such thing as a noble cause.”

He leaned forward to take the model from Hannibal’s hands. “You know, I might take your offer after all; some fresh air would be nice.”

Will put the glass back onto the table; his hand lingering on it before letting go.

“Be glad,” he said, more quietly than before, “that your job has spared you the sight of these things.”

Hannibal gave him a weak smile. “Well, there are many ways to kill a heart.”

 

♠♣♥♦

 

Only during their walk over the premises it became clear how large the property actually was. Behind the castle a trail led into the woods that, how Hannibal informed him, belonged to the Lecter family who also possessed the sole right to hunt in them.

“You hunt?” Will asked.

“No, not anymore. When I was younger, yes, now and then; but I was never particularly talented with the rifle. I assume as an FBI agent you have more experience in this field than I do.”

“Well, I’ve never actually killed anyone yet,” Will replied.

That wasn’t true. There had been _that one time_. It was just because it had been so dark; and Will hadn’t seen him (Yes he had).  There was so much blood. Right in the heart he’d shot him. But it had been so dark that Will hadn’t seen him. Totally hadn’t seen him. So much blood.

When Will noticed the frown on Hannibal’s face he realised that he’d stopped walking.

“’m sorry,” he murmured, catching up to Hannibal.

“A hunt can be a traumatic experience for all participants; maybe even more for the hunter than for the hunted. You might catch the prey physically, but the prey catches you emotionally.” There was gentleness in Hannibal’s voice that Will hadn’t expected. Was this his therapist voice? It was, Will had to admit, soothing in a way that silence was. And Will liked silence.

Their walk took them also to a small graveyard, which seemed to be the only part of the estate that wasn’t groomed tidily. It was in the very opposite state in fact. The tombstones were moss-covered and weathered to a point where the inscription had become unreadable; some of them had fallen over. There were no flowers on the graves, no candles, no statues; no sign that anybody actually cared.

One grave however was different. The tombstone was a bit smaller than the others and also slightly tilted, but the stone was clean and engraved in it was the name _Mischa Lecter_. There weren’t any flowers either, but a small candle was flickering in a brass lantern that sat next to a bowl of colourful stones that was filled with rainwater.

Hannibal was about to pass by, but Will stopped before the grave. He wasn’t sure whether Hannibal maybe had deliberately led them there to draw Will’s attention to this stone and this name, practically provoking a reaction from him – after all, the graveyard wasn’t on the direct way back to the castle.

“Was she a family member of yours?” Will asked, instantly realising how silly the question was considering that she bore the name Lecter.

“It’s my sister’s grave,” Hannibal responded, approaching to stand by Will’s side. “She died a very long time ago; she was just a child. I have only very few memories of her. One features her chasing me over this graveyard when we were young. She tripped over a branch, fell and broke her ankle just right here on this spot. It was a strange coincidence that she also happened to be buried here.”

Will nodded, unsure what to say. It must have been a tragic story; like it always is when one loses close family members at a young age; and he didn’t want to scratch open old wounds again. It was still odd that this seemed to be the only grave that mattered to Hannibal – or anyone at all. Most of the tombstones, at least those whose inscription was still decipherable, belonged to the Lecter family. But their negligence was so conspicuous that it almost looked intentional. What matter of events allowed a man like Dr. Lecter to tolerate such an imperfection on his premises, when he was so perfectly capable to maintain the rest of it?

To not appear any ruder than he already had, Will didn’t press Hannibal to reveal more details of his sister’s death; his focus wandered to the bowl filled with stones and water instead.

“These stones, do they have a meaning?”

They looked precious, like gemstones, sparkling even in this murky light.

“She loved precious stones when she was little. Our father was a collector of many things, including minerals; so now and then he took me and Mischa to a rarity store or a museum to buy new pieces of fossils or gems for his collection. Whenever we accompanied him on one of his trips he bought us gemstones. We established quite a collection during the years; this is what is left of it. I think she would have liked it; it is more durable than flowers.”

“May I,” Will stepped closer to Hannibal, looking at his face from the side, “may I ask what happened to her?”

“You may,” Hannibal replied, “but I’m afraid I can’t tell you. It was a real tragedy that ripped apart our family; a nightmare which is best not shared, but kept safe on these grounds.” He gave a weak smile. Then he gently tugged at Will’s arm. “Let us go back in, shall we? It’s getting rather cold out here.”

 

♠♣♥♦

 

After dinner that evening, which Will had watched Hannibal prepare step by step while strolling through his kitchen and feigning interest for its rich interior, he went straight to bed. He hadn’t eaten anything possibly poisoned and hadn’t touched the wine either, settling for tap water as a drink again, so the chances that Hannibal had drugged him were close to zero.

With highest attention he checked the grandfather’s clock for any traces of technical devices like cameras or projectors, but couldn’t find anything. Everything indicated that the ghost girl had in fact been a hallucination. The sounds were a totally different thing, since Will had already heard them during his bath before he’d even drunken the wine. Maybe there was some sort of fly brake causing the sounds? Admittedly, they didn’t sound like howls or wailing, the sounds these things normally created; however, maybe the extraordinary architecture of the mansion allowed a scythe-like sound when the wind howled round the corners?

Still, he couldn’t shake off a certain scare when he turned out the light and reflexively drew the sheets right up to his chin; like a small child hiding from the monsters under his bed. _Get your shit together, Graham_! he reproved himself. _This house is creepy, but not haunted. There are no ghosts. There. Are. No. Ghosts!_

He listened for the house to prove him wrong, but the clock ticked silently; the heavy pendulum following its eternal pace. Right, left, right, left. In the pale moonlight he could follow the swinging with his eyes. It was hypnotic; and worked like the oldest trick in the book: even though he was still a bit nervous, Will fell asleep after mere minutes.

He dreamt he was in the forest: hunting. It was cold; the ground was coated with hoarfrost. The frozen leafs crunching under his feet had scared off many deer; not a great hunting success. He knew he was looking for someone, though he didn’t know who until he saw her.

The girl was moving over the ground in absolute silence as if she was weightless. She had her back turned at him and was whispering to herself; words in a language Will couldn’t understand. He approached her from behind; slowly, he didn’t want to frighten her. When he came closer he could hear her sing:

_„Mano brolis davė man akmenis. Jie veda namo.“_

Every few metres she bowed down to pick up something and let it drop into the bowl she was carrying. Only then Will noticed that she was following a trail. A trail of gemstones.

_“Branga-branga-brangakmeniai, jie veda mane link tavęs.”_

Will raised his eyes to where the trail ended between the trees. He almost expected to find a gingerbread house there, like at the end of the fateful trail of breadcrumbs in Hansel and Gretel that led them right to the house of the witch; but it was just the trunk of a tree from whose burst roots a huge amount of mushrooms was sprouting. Behind one of the trees nearby the head of a boy with ash blonde hair, maybe 12 years of age, appeared and he peeked curiously at the girl who by then had almost reached the tree stump. Will saw from a distance how she picked up the last stone, inspected the trunk most carefully and then, after releasing a small cry of delight, reached inside it to take out a wooden box. Will couldn’t identify what was inside from his position, but it was obviously a part of a game. The moment the boy stepped out from behind the trees to reveal himself, she let the box and her bowl of gemstones drop to the ground to run and throw herself into his arms.

They whispered to each other and giggled; Will all the while completely invisible to them. Then the girl picked up the box and her bowl of gemstones, the boy wrapped his arm around her shoulder and they walked off towards the castle together.

Will was still standing at the same spot, as if he was frozen there, and he suddenly felt like an intruder.

_Swish – swish_

The scythe woke him up. Even before he opened his eyes Will knew that the girl was there; sitting on the pendulum with her big sad eyes and her thin dress; glowing silvery in the darkness of the room. Their glances met when Will pushed himself upright on the bed; beads of sweat running down his temples.

“Mischa?” he whispered.

She didn’t react to his words, but Will felt a cold breeze blowing through the room that moved the curtains at a window he didn’t remember opening.

In her hand the ghost girl held her bowl, which glowed even brighter than herself and in many different colours. Will’s eyes followed her when she slowly slid down from the pendulum and hovered towards the door; leaving little colourful drops behind with every step.

Will didn’t think when he stood up and followed her. Down the corridor, down a staircase, down another corridor, another staircase... until they were deep under the castle where they ended up in a wine cellar.

The room was lit with candles and oil lamps. It had a high ceiling and a paved floor that was covered with shards and ...bones? A cracking sound under Will’s soles made him startle and step back. There were many, many more; the whole room was full of bones. And the snails; there were snails everywhere. During his career Will had seen many gruesome crime scenes; had visited many dark places; but this was certainly the creepiest place he’d ever been.

The girl’s gem trail ended at the opposite side of the room in front of something that looked like bars. Was it a cage? She was watching Will as he stepped closer; as he jumped at the sudden moan coming from behind the bars; as he observed the crouching creature inside the cage. It was an old man, maybe 70 years old, wearing nothing but a loincloth. He was almost pale and when he parted his trembling lips, a row of black rotten teeth was revealed; many had already fallen out. His fingers were clenching at the bars and his eyes were widened in a pleading expression.

“Prašome! Prašome!”

It was a hoarse voice, almost inaudible. Behind him in the cage were more bones, some of them so large they looked almost...

Will wasn’t able to finish his thought because a creaking sound right behind him made him freeze.

He had found him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation of Mischa's song:
> 
> „Mano brolis davė man akmenis. Jie veda namo.“ = My brother gave me stones. They lead me home.  
> "Branga-branga-brangakmeniai, jie veda mane link tavęs.” = Gem-gem-gemstones, they lead me to you.
> 
> A big thank you to [every-bubble](http://every-bubble.tumblr.com/) for helping me with the Lithuanian translation. Ačiū! :)


	4. And the tale they shared

For a moment there was absolute silence in the room; not even the man behind the bars dared to take a breath. Then, with a small sizzling noise, Mischa’s ghost disappeared; and Will ran.

He didn’t turn around, didn’t need to see the face or hear the voice to know who had followed him down into the dungeon (or whatever this was, as to Will it seemed very much like one). The clattering of his shoe soles echoed from the walls so loudly that Will feared the corridor might start collapsing from the vibrations alone. Worst of all was that he had no idea where he was or how he got there. Mischa’s original trail of ghost stones had disappeared and without it Will was completely lost in the labyrinth under the castle, which was clearly a disadvantage for him, since his follower most certainly knew the place like the back of his hand.

Will didn’t even know for sure if he was actually followed; under his own panting breath and the noise of his steps, he couldn’t hear any other sounds; but the instinct to flee had been so strong, stronger than at any time in his life before. As someone working for the FBI he knew better than to ignore his instincts; and basically, running away was never really the wrong choice – a circumstance that fortunately harmonised quite well with his social anxiety. Here, in this castle, in this cellar, was something so entirely wrong, even _wicked_ , that it made his hair rise when he just thought about it.

_Upstairs, upstairs_ ; there had to be more than one staircase! The cellar probably extended beneath the whole estate, given the endless straight line corridors he’d passed, so there had to be more than one way to get down there. Or had he been running in circles? The corridor to his right looked horribly familiar and so he turned around and stormed back into the direction where he thought he’d come from.

After some more metres he stopped abruptly. Right next to him the portrait of a lady hung at the wall. Her eyes were half closed and a smirk played around her lips; as if she knew something, but would not tell. Will was mortified by the picture, because he’d just seen it. He had passed it on his way to the cellar and this meant he knew his location again, but when he’d passed it the first time, the lady hadn’t smiled. She had cried.

With his heart beating to his throat Will staggered back a few steps and it felt as if cold arms tightened around his chest and squeezed all the breath out of him. This house was built from the stuff of nightmares and he was captured in the worst of all. From the corner of his eye he saw a movement in the shadows which set his feet into motion again. If he at least found the wine cellar again, so he could join the man there in his misery; of course the bars provided no protection, but he had the strong feeling that he would join the prisoner very soon anyway.

In that moment, he tripped over something he hadn’t seen _(because it had been so dark; and Will hadn’t seen him (Yes he had). There was so much blood)_ and fell; knocking his head against the edge of a – staircase? Lying there, sprawled out on the floor with horrible pain throbbing in his forehead and something warm running down his temples, all Will could see was the thin stream of light seeping through the crack of a door on top of the stairs. _Out. OUT!_

As he pulled himself upright at the banister the floor began to sway under his feet and if it hadn’t been so dark he would have been able to see the smirk of the lady on the picture grow even wider; her eyes following Will as he staggered up the stairs.

 

♠♣♥♦

 

He ended up in a different part of the corridor than before, but the familiar chessboard pattern on the floor, the tiles reflecting the cold moonlight, told him he was near the entrance door again. For the first time Will allowed himself to stop and take some deep breaths; leaning against the wall to his right and feeling the cold sweat dry on his forehead. Desperately, blinded by the racing of his heart, he tried to marshal his senses and get a whole picture of the situation he was in.

_I am Will Graham. I am in Lithuania, in a castle belonging to a doctor, and he is hunting me. There is a ghost. And I’ve found a hostage in the cellar. And snails, and bones. And God, help me! I’m being followed! He will kill me! He will KILL me! I am Will Graham. I am being followed. Out! OUT!_

The windows had been on the left hand side when Hannibal had lead him to his bedroom, so that meant he had to head into that direction; at least if he wanted to get to his bedroom. Will turned around and carefully checked the corridor behind him for any movements or shadows, but it seemed to be empty. If he was quick he could escape through the front door; cross the lawn, pass the graveyard, straight ahead to the gate; and then to the street – and... then? He had no car, no phone, neither a torch nor a simple match to make light. He was still wearing his pyjamas and, probably most fatal, was completely unarmed.

Maybe, if he was even quicker, he could get to his room, grab his stuff, take one of the knives from the collection he had brought to show to the students the next day, and then follow his escape plan.

The knives were old and often covered with dried blood, for they mostly came from horribly bloody crime scenes, but they’d definitely do. Will sometimes brought them to his lectures to demonstrate how the shape of a blade affected the shape of the wound it created and that it was possible, if one knew how to look, to discern the sort of knife that had been used by the shape of the wound margins alone. For that purpose the collection included small tomato knifes as well as huge silvery butcher knives; the former, being handled appropriately, just as dangerous as the latter, since the jagged blade of a tomato knife ripped the skin apart and created a wound that looked much bigger from the outside than it was from the inside and also could cause a surprisingly high blood loss. Will still preferred the butcher’s knife if he had to choose. Just to be sure.

With a last glance over his shoulder – there was still nobody to be seen – he stormed off towards the stairs that led up to the next floor.

“Will?”

The voice came from above and made the blood in Will’s veins freeze. Thunderstruck he gazed up to the figure of Hannibal Lecter leaning against the handrail on top of the stairs; wrapped in a dressing gown and, at least visibly, unarmed. His hair was dishevelled and his eyes were still half closed from sleep.

_No, he can’t be up there! He was behind me! He can’t be! How? HOW?_

All the blood had left his face and Will had to support himself at the wall not to sink to the floor. 

“What’s the matter, Will?” the doctor asked, calm but with a sharpness lingering in his voice. “Did you have trouble sleeping?”

Hannibal’s eyes were as dark as the sea in a moonless night; waters that wouldn’t stir even if you threw a rock into them.

Slowly and lingering, like a cat, he descended a few steps; Will was still frozen at the spot, not able to break eye contact with the other man. His mind had gone blank and he felt as if someone had placed a huge stone on the tip of his tongue, and in his throat, and in his chest until he was filled up to the brim with stones and drowned where he stood; the ground just swallowing him and making him its own.

“Dear god, you look so pale,” Hannibal exclaimed at the sight of Will’s face. “As if you’d seen a ghost!”

 

♠♣♥♦

 

The corridor was far longer than Will remembered, even if he was running now. He had left Hannibal by the stairs, turned round and stormed off into the opposite direction, where he assumed the front door to be. He was so sure it had been there; actually he should already have passed it. Oh god, what if he had already passed it? But Will wasn’t even able to stop, his feet just driving him forward and forward, just away from Dr. Lecter. He was almost inclined to believe the man was nothing more than a ghost, too.

When he reached the end of the corridor on the other side, Will realised he was trapped between two walls and another staircase on top of which fortunately nothing but darkness awaited him. Turning around and running back was definitely not an option, so he headed for the only way that was left: upstairs.

He stumbled into total darkness, but it felt safe. Darkness was good; some place to hide in. _If I can’t see you, you can’t see me._ The floor of the hallway there was covered with a long thick carpet, which allowed Will to move almost soundless. When nothing was to be seen or heard for more than ten minutes he slowly felt his pulse calm down and his breath become regular again. It seemed he had made it; at least for now. Maybe he could find a room to spend the night in; crouching in a wardrobe or under a bed, waiting silently until the sun rose again and then start a new attempt on leaving this godforsaken place. 

With his eyes slowly attuned to the dark, he was able to discern the outline of a door left ajar at his left hand side. After a last glance to both sides of the corridor, he slipped into the room.

It was a nursery. The centre was occupied by a canopy bed, which was neatly made. On the right and left side of the pillow a row of stuffed animals was arranged, sorted by height: bears, a horse, a pig, a raven and something that looked like a little troll and was probably handmade. At the wall stood a wardrobe, a desk, a small bookshelf, and in a corner: a rocking horse. Will almost expected it to start moving as soon as he looked at it, but the horse remained motionless.

On tiptoes, Will walked closer to the bed and slowly sat down, very cautious to avoid creaking of the mattress. Breathing deeply in and out he tried to calm his breath and clear his bedazzled mind that prevented him from clear thinking. There had to be an explanation for all this.

Will closed his eyes and listed the facts before his inner eye: He had followed a ghost girl down into the dungeon, where he’d found a man locked in a cage; then, suddenly he’d panicked because it had felt as if someone was following him and so he’d stormed off upstairs, where he’d almost bumped into Hannibal, who had apparently just got out of bed, but his sudden appearance had caused Will to run yet again, so now and finally, he had ended up in an old nursery. Thinking about the order of events it became more and more clear to him, that there was actually no indication that Hannibal had really followed him to the dungeons. Will had been so sure; he could swear he’d felt someone’s presence down there, but thinking about it, it could easily just have been a hallucination. There was still, of course, the matter of the man in the cage: Who was he and why was he locked in down there? And where the hell did all those bones come from? The fact that he had no proof for Hannibal’s intention to follow and kill him didn’t change anything in his plans to leave the castle as soon as possible, but not before the morning. For now, he’d stay here, awake and attentive, until the break of dawn would ease his escape.

Content with his conclusion he turned his head to look at the rest of the room; and jumped almost out of his skin when there on the rocking horse, silvery and weightless, the girl’s transparent ghost body rocked softly back and forth. She had her head resting on the head of the horse and observed him with a soft glance. In front of her, a circle of small flickering lights in different colours was spread on the floor in the middle of the room; at least it looked like a circle at first. When Will stepped closer, his fear of the ghost now almost gone, he could identify many more forms inside of it: a triangle, a cross, and many other, smaller circles; everything united in a unique symbol.

Mischa’s eyes followed Will as he surrounded the symbol to look at it from different perspectives. He was so lost in his observations that he only noticed the man at the door when his shadow fell over the light circle and the little ghost stones immediately vanished.

“Hannibal?” This time it was Will who spoke first.

“What are you doing here, Will?” His tone was calm but dangerous.

From the way the shadow fell onto the floor Will could tell that the doctor was standing right on the threshold of the door, so there was no room to escape. Slowly, with his head lowered, Will turned around and met Hannibal’s gaze, who stood there motionless and with his arms folded in front of his chest.

“The question rather is,” Will countered while slowly approaching the other man, “what are YOU doing here, Dr. Lecter?”

Hannibal’s gaze remained cold and intense, but there was a brief twitch in his eye before he answered: “I was looking for you. I was worried you might be having a seizure or something similar; considering the pale colour of your face and the fact that you’re sweating heavily I assumed you had a fever.”

Will gave a dry laugh. “A fever? You think I’m fevering? Very well, you are a doctor, so tell me: how would you treat that? I’m sure you have some special medicine here.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hannibal said, leaning back as Will came closer; visibly confused by the other’s sudden struck of self-confidence.

“Oh, you know,” Will went on, “a bit of that substance that makes so wonderfully sleepy and satisfied and additionally makes one see the undead crawl out of their graves. What is it, doctor? One of your own tinctures from your past days of practising as a psychiatrist? Did you enjoy watching your patients go from a little unstable to completely batshit crazy?”

Will knew he was provoking him and given the strength of the other man, he himself would most certainly lose a fight; but Hannibal seemed to be unarmed and even if Will was not very fond of talking, he was certainly trained to string criminals along for as long as necessary – one of the things his FBI training had been useful for.

Hannibal frowned. “Are you accusing me of drugging you?”

“Guess what!” Will yelled. “Yes, Dr. Lecter, and that’s not a blatant accusation, I know it! I know you’ve been drugging me. I’m not sure how you did it, but I know it!”

“Will,” Hannibal said calmly, reaching out to put a hand on Will’s shoulder but the other pulled away. “Why on earth would I do such a thing?”

“That’s what I want to know from you!” Will was now outright screaming. “What fucking kind of maniacal game are you playing here? Why are you following me? What do you want from me? I just asked you for a bed for the night! Jeez, I was even willing to pay for it! I did nothing to provoke your anger in any way and still you pull this shit here and make me think I go crazy because I see pictures move and ghosts drop shiny little stones everywhere! Do you have a rational explanation for this? Well, me neither, except that you somehow sneaked some psychedelic bullshit into my meals and now I get nightly visits from a little girl who likes to use the pendulum of the clock in my room as a swing and is currently staring at me from the goddamn rocking horse over there!”

In the silence following Will’s outbreak one could hear a pin drop. There came no response. Hannibal had gone completely pale.

“You can see her?”

 

♠♣♥♦

 

“Raise your head, Will. And please hold still.”

Hannibal kneeled down on the bed next to Will and carefully started cleaning the wound on his head with a wet cloth, revealing a small laceration under the patch of dried blood. It would need some time to heal, but it wasn’t deep and therefore didn’t need stitches. Will closed his eyes and endured the procedure quietly, gritting his teeth at the pain.

They had moved to Will’s room so Hannibal could attend to the wound; Will hadn’t questioned that. He was so occupied in his thoughts about the events of the evening that he’d simply followed Hannibal when they left the nursery together, the other’s eyes constantly resting on his face. Hannibal hadn’t said anything since then; Will hadn’t questioned that either.

He knew that the other man was unarmed now. Hannibal had bared his face of the mask he’d been wearing ever since Will had arrived; he looked younger now and more vulnerable. Finally his face told a story, and Will could see it all, like he could with other people. He found sadness, a loss, despair, anger, resignation... a lot more emotions that were still blurred; but most of all Hannibal looked tired.

“Hold still please, this might hurt a bit,” Hannibal warned when he sprayed some disinfectant onto the wound. Will hissed at the sharp sting shooting through his forehead and Hannibal ran his fingers through Will’s hair to calm him. “I will apply a plaster to the wound to prevent an infection. If you let your hair fall over your forehead it will be as good as invisible.”

Will studied Hannibal’s face as he adjusted the plaster. He could imagine him doing the same for his sister when they were younger. When she’d fall down while playing, or bruise her legs during their hiding game in the forest, would he sit down next to her, too? Being just as gentle but with his eyes a lot livelier? Will himself couldn’t remember anyone doing this for him before. Even when he was young, his father had always just handed him the pack of plasters when he got hurt, never cared for the wound himself, for it mostly was nothing but a scratch. Will hadn’t been a particularly adventurous boy, had never even broken a single bone in his life. At one point he’d even believed to be invulnerable, because he’d been kicked and punched so often by the other kids, but never got seriously injured. That was until Rick, the neighbour kid who was almost 3 years older than him, had knocked out one of his teeth because Will had called his cat a stinking toilet brush. Well, he had always been more of a dog person. But even back then his father had only patted his shoulder when they left the dentist some hours later and bought him a remote-controlled car for consolation with which Will had been playing for days, alone.

And now, thirty years later and in a completely different situation, he couldn’t help but find Hannibal’s care soothing, even though he was still deeply confused by the other’s behaviour.

After completing his treatment, Hannibal let his hands sink into his lap and lowered his head. Will wasn’t sure if he was waiting for him to say something or simply sunken in his thoughts, but he assumed it was now his job to take a step forward.

“It was your sister, wasn’t it? The girl, it was Mischa.”

Hannibal raised his head at the sound of the name, his mouth slightly open. Will forced himself to hold his gaze, even if he could barely stand the hurt he found in Hannibal’s eyes.

“Yes. Or at least the ghost of her.”

It was not more than a whisper and Will was positively intrigued by how the simple fact that he was able to see her could break Hannibal’s composure so entirely.

“So if she is not a hallucination but – a ghost,” Will began, still not quite able to believe he was actually saying these words, “why were you so surprised that I could see her?”

Hannibal rose from the bed and began collecting the content of the medical kit that was scattered all over the counterpane.

“She never revealed herself to anyone but me ever before,” he said, his voice still quiet and hoarse. “Ghosts can choose to whom they appear and in which form. It depends on their own relationship towards someone as well as the person’s receptiveness for supernatural elements. To some they appear only as shadows, wafts of mist, or are completely invisible but only audibly perceptible. That is called a poltergeist. Lots of people never have contact with any of them at all. A ghost only appears in his original form to people with whom it has a special connection: A lover, a family member,...” he stashed the kit back into the cupboard of the night cabinet, “...an enemy.”

“But I am none of it,” Will said bewildered.

“Exactly. That’s why I was so astonished. She couldn’t have known you and you couldn’t have known her. Could you?” Hannibal looked as if he momentarily doubted his own sanity.

“I have never met nor heard of her before in my life,” Will assured him.

Hannibal shook his head. “No, I’m sure you haven’t.”

He stood next to the bed now and Will noticed he looked somehow – humble, with his shoulders sunken and a helpless look on his face; and Will wondered where on the way to this moment he himself had lost his fear and anger towards the man. The only things that scared him were the questions that were yet to ask; and their answers, of course.

“There are exceptions,” Hannibal added after a while. “Some people say ghosts have prophesying abilities. They aren’t restricted by the concept of past and future and so they see what was, what is, and what will be, all in one picture.”

Will frowned. “So you say that I might become one of those things? What should I be then, an enemy?”

“It’s interesting that that’s what you think of first.”Hannibal’s eyes grew gentler.

“I can’t see how else I will fit in the picture. I know nothing about her; I hardly believe our relationship could ever be close.”

The beginning of a smile lingers in the corners of Hannibal’s lips. “The relationship between enemies can be just as close as the one between lovers or a family, maybe even closer. Hate is a feeling that comes from the depth of the heart, just like love. The concept of family itself is the best example of how blurry the lines are sometimes.”

“Is that what happened in your family?”

Will saw Hannibal swallow and lower his head again. “In some ways, yes. But I don’t think this is the right time to talk about it; I suggest you sleep now and let your injury heal until morning.”

He was about to turn round and leave, but Will could not let him get away so easily when all the questions still lay unanswered on the tip of his tongue.

“What happened to her?” He sat up in his bed, prepared to stand up and block the door within seconds should Hannibal make an attempt to leave after all. “How did she die, Hannibal? What do those stones mean? Who is the man in the cellar?”

Hannibal paused at the last question, his back turned at Will. “You have been down there?”

Will looked at him bewildered. “You know I was! You were there, too.”

Without a word Hannibal turned around again. There was no surprise in his face, but neither anything that answered the hidden question: _Were you?_   Slowly he walked towards the bed again, which made Will scoot backwards before he realised there was actually no more space to go.

“I’m sure,” he began and sat down on the edge of the bed again, “that you deserve to know; but you must understand that once you know about it, there is no going back.”

Will waited, saying nothing, knowing that this could mean all kinds of things.

“There is knowledge that weights so heavily that it can drag you to the bottom of the sea. The darkness there is just enough to make the pain invisible, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. This story is full of pain, Will, and full of darkness.”

Will found himself less brave and courageous then, but not less curious. “I have heard a lot of dark stories, doctor,” he said, “and I’m not afraid to hear yours.”

Hannibal smiled weakly. “You are part of the story, as soon as I tell you. I will drag you into my world.”

“I’m part of it already,” Will replied, “so how much worse could it get if I go one step further?”

“A lot, Will,” Hannibal said, looking him directly in the eye. “A lot.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey you all! :) I want to thank you for all the lovely feedback I've received! It's really a wonderful motivation and brightens my day. To those of you whose days aren't so bright at the moment (because of different reasons) I'd like to tell you: It is always worth to keep on fighting, always. And brighter days will come, for sure. Also, in the light of recent events, if anyone needs someone to talk to, I'm there for you, just message me. :)


	5. They revelled in crimson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be prepared for a lot of dialogue in this chapter. And I mean A LOT. But there is also a lot of fluff! :) (ok, I didn’t plan this; this was supposed to be a really dark story, but well...) *adds Fluff tag* ;)
> 
> Beta-ed once more by the lovely [SilverQueen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSilverQueen/)!

„Do you have an enemy, Will?”

Will turned the tumbler of whiskey in his hands. They had moved their discussion to the parlour again for it was easier to talk there. Though admittedly it was not an easy question, considering that in his job Will had to deal with people who stood on the opposite side of the law all the time, but he avoided developing a personal resentment against them. Exploring their crimes by taking up their point of view was exhausting enough; he wanted to spare himself the exertion that came with grooming hate for someone.

“Apart from my own mind, I can think of no one.”

Hannibal smiled at this and leaned back in his winged chair. “It is very wise to recognise the enemy within oneself. It is our oldest and most dangerous one and the one that will finally bring us down.”

“Still I assume this is not what you meant when you asked me that question,” Will replied and took a sip of his whiskey.

“It is partly,” Hannibal admitted, “but for a long time I solely projected my hate and rage upon the enemies on the outside, failing to see the one in myself grow and take over control until he finally was the core of the problem.”

“The man in the cage,” Will asked. “Is he one of the ones on the outside?”

“Yes, he is the last one.”

“What happened to the others?”

Hannibal observed Will’s reaction when he said: “They are all dead.”

Will shivered. He might have underestimated how dark the story would become. Still, he wasn’t afraid. The moment Hannibal had learned that Will was able to see Mischa, too; the moment his mask fell off was when Will knew he was out of danger. At least for now.

“Did you...” he asked, careful nevertheless, “Did you kill them?”

“No.” Hannibal’s gaze got lost in the fire he had lit up. “No, I didn’t.” He didn’t seem to be taken aback at Will’s presumption at all.

“You don’t seem to be happy about this,” Will observed.

“Death isn’t what they deserved, neither by my hand nor by someone else’s.”

Will frowned. “I don’t assume you mean by that that they deserved better.”

Suddenly Hannibal moved, leaning forwards in his chair, his hands resting on his knees, and looked Will straight in the eye. “What do they teach about right and wrong at the FBI academy, Will? What do you tell your students when they ask you whether killing is wrong?”

Will had not suspected such a question, nor had he ever been directly confronted with the matter by his students. “I’d probably tell them that right and wrong are social constructs and depend on the moral of the respective society; and killing is wrong because it denies the victim his most fundamental right, which is the right to live and no one is justified to take that from anybody.”

“No one but God alone?” Hannibal asked.

“I usually refrain from bringing God into the discussion,” Will replied. “It’s a very tender subject.”

“So what if someone abandons that morality to get his revenge on those who also abandoned that morality?”

Will thought about it for a moment. “That would still be wrong, I guess,” he finally concluded. “The validity of morality doesn’t depend on the situation; otherwise it would not be morality but rather order.”

A smile spread on Hannibal’s face. “I really wish our paths had crossed earlier, maybe even when I was still practising as a psychiatrist. We could have had the most interesting discussions and perhaps I could even have been helpful for your work, offering you some help with my insight into people’s minds for the sake of solving crimes.”

“I still don’t understand what all that has to do with your sister,” Will said, ignoring Hannibal’s attempt to sidestep the topic.

Hannibal sighed and his smile vanished. The comfort both of them had been beginning to find in their discussion was gone again, replaced by the ever present darkness that had settled in every corner of the house. Now Will leaned forward, too, meeting Hannibal’s eyes, who had lowered his head. “What happened, Hannibal? Please, I need to know. Otherwise I can’t help you.”

Hannibal looked up. “Why would you want to help me?”

“Because, like you said, I’m part of this story now,” Will replied as gentle as possible. “Also, technically, I’m still a member of the FBI and therefore permanently in duty to help.” He smiled.

Hannibal’s features softened and he almost managed to smile back. “Well, I am a doctor and still mostly unwilling to help people that I know for less than 48 hours.”

“Well, as far as I know the Hippocratic Oath doesn’t particularly demand this,” Will pointed out.

“Nor does your duty refer to ghosts and people haunted by their past.”

“That’s true.”

They shared a short laugh and Will slowly felt the tension ease away from Hannibal. Then the other fell quiet again.

When he finally spoke, Hannibal’s voice was weak: “They killed her, Will. They killed her and let me watch it. I looked into her eyes the moment one of them slashed her throat and saw life leaving her. We were just children. I was fifteen, she barely eight. They were many; seven, or maybe ten, I can’t remember. They killed our parents first, shot my father in the head, then my mother when she tried to restrain them from taking us away. Mischa and I were allowed to survive at first, but then their urge to kill returned again eventually and then she was the weaker one, and the slower.”

Will’s eyes widened while he was listening.

“Their cruelty was extreme, _savage_. I don’t know if it was pleasure or insanity, but they didn’t kill for need. The way they ... ended them, my parents and Mischa, was so cold and ruthless. They did not regret it, they revelled in it. They revelled in all the blood, in the way they turned the whole world crimson by their deeds. I can still see the pool of blood where she had been lying on the kitchen floor. This house is a tomb, Will, and its ghosts are restless.”

Will realised his hand had found its way onto Hannibal’s while he spoke and made an attempt to pull it away, but Hannibal’s fingers stroke his wrist to hold him back, so he remained where he was. Strangely, it didn’t feel awkward.

“They left after four more days of barbarism, taking all precious goods they could carry with them and left me with the corpses of my family. Everything that happened afterwards I know only from reports and the narration of people who took care of me. I didn’t speak for a whole year, or perhaps longer. My memory didn’t return until the age of 17 when I was sent to a boarding school in France by my uncle. I began a therapy and later studied medicine in Baltimore, that’s why I speak English so well. For many years I was able to block out any thoughts about the events that took place in this castle. When one represses a memory for such a long time, it starts to take on new forms, starts to change. In some versions my parents just left us and Mischa died from a fever, in some they all survived and I was the one who ran away. After so many years I needed to finally find out what really happened, so I returned to Lithuania; that was eight years ago. The moment I entered this castle again it all came back to me; every image, every second of pain. It was such a rush of memories that I passed out and was found hours later, trembling and experiencing extreme seizures. I was brought to a hospital where they told me I was fine and it was all a psychological reaction; but I knew I was never going to be fine until I had repaid those men for what they did. So as soon as I got released, I started looking for them.”

“Did you find them?” Will asked, somehow already knowing the answer.

“No. After so many years most of them were dead already. They had died from a natural cause after a long and probably unconcerned life without ever being prosecuted for their deeds. There was only one of them left.”

“And you found him,” Will said, whispering now. It wasn’t just his empathy that made the pain that Hannibal must have experienced so real to him. Will had heard a lot of tragic stories already and even though he was sometimes haunted by the pictures his mind formed out of the narration, nothing he’d ever heard had felt that personal before. There was a connection to this man and his story that Will could not categorise; it was as if he really was a part of it. He didn’t even need Hannibal to tell the rest; he knew what was to come from there on.

“Yes, I found him,” Hannibal said, “and according to your account you have met him already.”

“For how long?” Will asked, quietly, as if it could diminish the graveness of the answer.

Hannibal turned his eyes away. He didn’t look ashamed, but rather surprised himself as if he’d never really thought about it before: “Almost four years.”

 “Four years,” Will repeated without a sound, his lips just forming the words.

It was a shock, of course. Imagining the man rot in his cage for four winters and four summers; not seeing a beam of sunlight, his skin turning grey, his teeth rotting and falling out, always crouching under the low ceiling of his prison, begging like a dog to be set free. Hopefully Hannibal had at least provided him with enough food.

The doctor sat there, waiting for Will’s reaction to his confession. How did someone react to this? There were things that were reasonable: _Go to the police! - Just run away and forget about it! - Free the prisoner and then go to the police! – Damnit, Graham, you virtually are the police, arrest him!_

But Will was not someone for ‘reasonable’; reason was a trick of the mind to explain and categorise. And there was neither a way to explain nor to categorise the reason somebody had to hold a man prisoner who had done such unforgivable things. Will knew better than to feel sympathy for Hannibal and yet he did. He knew if he closed his eyes he’d see everything: the men storming into the house, the blood, the screams, the dead bodies on the floor and amidst them a little boy, traumatised for his life. It wasn’t pity Will felt, he never felt pity for anyone who turned from victim to perpetrator, but empathy always worked on both sides.

He took another sip of his whiskey before he asked: “And all this time you have told no one?”

“You’re the first one to hear it from me,” Hannibal confessed.

“So what do you expect me to do now?”

Hannibal took a sip from his own tumbler, and then tilted his head slightly. “I don’t know. You are, I must say, entirely unpredictable for me. And since I told you my dark secret my fate is in your hands now, so I’m not in the position anymore to expect anything from you. Rather I am interested to hear what you think is the right thing to do now.”

Will shook his head. “The concepts of right and wrong don’t apply to your story. What you experienced defies all conceptualisation and so does your reaction to it. I said I am part of this now and I am, but don’t put me into a position of judging what would be right to do.”

“In that case,” Hannibal rose from the chair to refill their tumblers with whiskey, “I suggest we let fate decide about the outcome of this.”

 

♠♣♥♦

 

Will had definitely drunk too much whiskey. In the course of the past hour Hannibal had refilled their glasses many more times; never very much, but it added up after a while.

He was now in a state of sleepiness and warmth that made his limbs heavy and his tongue easy and so during the last one and a half hours he’d told Hannibal virtually everything about his life. Not only because he felt he had to return some of the trust Hannibal had shown him by telling him his own story, but also because it felt so good to unbosom oneself to someone who actually seemed to be interested and listened. Will’s life wasn’t particularly interesting: living alone, a social life all but nonexistent, a job in which he told the students every year the same things, occasionally travelling to talk on congresses to people he neither knew well nor cared about. He didn’t care much about people altogether. He had his dogs, his little cottage, his fishing gear and a river to sit at and clear his mind when soft, cool breezes stroked his skin. It was a peaceful little life and most of the time he liked it. But of course it didn’t make a good story when he told people about it and then they often were disappointed about the lack of excitement in his life and lost interest in him very quickly. Hannibal however seemed to be more intrigued with every story he told. He even cared to listen when Will started talking about the crime scenes he visited and the gruesome situations he’d witnessed there. That was the point when other people ended the talk at the latest; however interested they were about the work of an FBI consultant in the first place, nobody really wanted to hear the details of his job which were sometimes – disturbing to say the least.

Talking to Hannibal was easy and without saying much he managed to keep Will talking and broaching new subjects on his own, something rarely anybody could do, and Will wondered if the doctor was aware of how easy he made it for him. He truly wished that he’d had the chance to speak to this kind of psychiatrist when he was younger, maybe then his therapy would have been a success and his life would have been much easier than it was now.

When Will brought up the story of a dog he’d rescued during one of his field trips and then taken up as a new member of his pack Hannibal smiled so widely that his eyes began to sparkle. “You really are a hero for your dogs, aren’t you?” he asked with a wink.

“I beg your pardon?” Will countered, the syllables already blurring from the alcohol. “I’m a hero in everything I do!”

Hannibal laughed. “Of course, please forgive me, professor. I’m sure the FBI owes you the entirety of its feats.”

“At least half of it! Or maybe a quarter. However, since I’m not in active field work they are most certainly missing out on a lot of my heroic deeds. A classroom doesn’t provide much opportunity for this kind of things.”

“I must contradict here,” Hannibal replied, his smile still warm and genuine, “Good teachers are always heroes. Knowledge is a gift and giving it to others and helping them make the best of their talents is probably the most honourable thing one could do. In that way I bow to you and your sense of duty. But if you really are the hero you claim to be then I’m afraid I must make some corrections to the sketch I made of you yesterday. It doesn’t do your merit justice the way it is now.”

“What corrections are you thinking of exactly?” Will asked, smiling as he joined Hannibal on the floor where the other had crouched down in front of the sketchbook again. He hadn’t had a chance to look at the drawing the way it was up to now and therefore was entirely stunned by the precision and authenticity with which Hannibal had portrayed him. (...)

“I don’t know,” Hannibal replied, “How would you like to be depicted in compliance to your heroicness? Would you like to have a cape perhaps? Or a crown and a torch in your hand like the statue of liberty?”

Will laughed. “No way!”

“No, I imagine you are more the quiet hero; somebody who doesn’t brag about his deeds, but rather wears his badge secretly. And the proudest thing one can wear is a smile.” Hannibal started erasing Will’s mouth in the drawing, which had made him look serious and contemplative, and replaced it with a triumphant smirk. Something only those people wore who were aware of their own victory, even if nobody else was.

Will watched with fascination as he saw his face come to life on the paper. The smile changed everything: his eyes looked brighter, his features softer and it surprised him that even without any applied changes to his eye area the smile was shining and wholehearted.

“Don’t you have to change the rest of the face now as well?” he yet suggested.

Hannibal leaned back to take a look at the complete picture. “Actually I am quite satisfied with the way it is now. Your eyes mustn’t become too gentle, that wouldn’t fit. And you see the smile is still all over you. It has already been there in the first place, you just decided to hide it.”

They were so close now. Will couldn’t remember how it had happened and whether it was the alcohol’s fault or the other man’s charm, but everything inside him dragged him forward, closer and closer, until there was barely an inch left to separate them. This near the warm brown of Hannibal’s eyes was clear and Will saw the flames dance in them where they reflected the fire in the fireplace. Hannibal’s hands had wandered to Will’s thighs and kept a hold of him, gentle yet possessive without leaving him a chance to simply slip away. He let his eyes run briefly over the rest of Will’s body before meeting his eyes again.

“One day you should let me draw a whole body portrait of you. This sight is far too fascinating to be wasted.” Hannibal leaned further forward until the tip of their noses brushed.

“I don’t know if I feel comfortable with you inspecting my whole body, Dr. Lecter,” Will whispered, his smile growing wider.

“No?” Hannibal replied, gently placing a hand in Will’s neck. “Well then maybe I will just begin here for now.”

Will had closed his eyes during the last sentence, so he only felt what happened next. Hannibal’s lips were warm and the first touch only lasted for a second or two before there was emptiness again, but it was enough to light the spark in Will and before Hannibal could pull back entirely, he cupped the other man’s face and kissed back, more fiercely and with his eyes still closed. After a while their kiss became more exploratory as Will slightly parted his lips a bit and their tongues met.

Will had come even closer so that he almost sat in the other man’s lap by then and it became quite uncomfortable, so after giving the other another peck on the lips he slid backwards and pulled himself up onto the sofa behind him, draping one arm over the backrest in invitation. Hannibal smiled up at him and then climbed onto the sofa as well, straddling him with one knee between Will’s legs and the other one right next to him. For a moment they just gazed at each other; then Hannibal took Will’s face in both hands and dove down for another kiss.

Will didn’t know where it had come from. The alcohol, the crackling of the fire while their discussion had felt so easy; the fact that he’d come through the storm and found a place to stay, the way Hannibal made him feel like the only object worthy of his attention or a secret spell that lingered among all the evil spirits of the house; but whatever it was, it was addictive and beautiful and Will wanted it to stay.

He forgot about the man in the cellar, the bones on the floor, the fact that he had to attend a congress of high importance in less than six hours and was in fact far too drunk to properly recover until then, and all the dark stories that surrounded him while the moment spun like a cocoon around them and held them secure.

Eventually it was Hannibal who pulled back. “Sleep now, Will. I think you have more heroic teaching moments to brave tomorrow and you shouldn’t be too tired then.”

Will chuckled and then, with a sigh, shifted his position so Hannibal could lay down beside him, even though it was still too less space for two.

“Shall I get us a blanket?” Hannibal asked in a murmur, but Will couldn’t answer anymore, happily and calmly drifting off to sleep.

 

♠♣♥♦

 

There were these few, innocent seconds right after waking up when his brain hadn’t yet remembered the events of the previous evening. These few seconds in which Will felt nothing but the softness of the cushion beneath him and something warm right next to him; moments in which he could be anyone and everywhere, independent from time and place. But then there was this warm breath at his ear and when he opened his eyes it suddenly hit him with full force.

_Oh fuck._

He groaned when a horrible blunt pain began throbbing behind his temples and reminded him of the way-too-much whiskey he’d drunk.

Hannibal beside him was apparently still asleep, so Will freed himself from the loose embrace of the other’s arms and padded up to his own room to get changed. A look onto his watch told him he had to be at the congress in less than two hours, so he ought to be out the door already. In his hurry to pack all his models, laptop and script while desperately trying to get a grip on his hangover he didn’t have the time to really process what it meant, the things that had happened. Actually, they didn’t have to mean that much, right? After all it was just a kiss; they’d both been drunk and then had started making out. That wasn’t a thing that had never happened to Will before; except the other times it had always been girls. He’d never kissed a man before in his life, never had felt the desire to and even this time it didn’t feel like desire to him. It was not really attraction (even though Will was well aware that Hannibal was indeed attractive), but at the moment it was rather – comforting. It should have unsettled him, maybe even shocked him, but the truth was: he felt good about it, not ashamed or horrified. There was no urge to make this go anywhere. He’d be gone before many more nights had passed and then they’d probably never meet again, so what was there to say against having some fun as long as he could?

There were of course many more things that actually ought to concern him. The prisoner in the cellar, the fact that Hannibal kept him there for four whole years like an animal and hadn’t told anybody about it yet, and foremost the question of how to deal with this.

When Will rushed downstairs and passed the kitchen door, Hannibal stood on the threshold in a dark red shirt and loose pants, looking at him in surprise.

“You’re leaving already?” he asked.

Will raised his eyebrows. “I have to attend a congress today, remember? I’m too late already. Can I please have your car keys?”

Hannibal hesitated for a moment before he went to the study to get them while Will waited in the corridor, nervously swaying back and forth on his toes.

“Thanks,” he said, grabbing the keys from Hannibal’s hand and he was almost out the door when the other called for him once more: “You will return, won’t you?”

Will stopped, turning around to find uncertainty in Hannibal’s eyes. “Sure,” he said and then, after one more lingering moment, was out the door, leaving Hannibal behind who remained where he stood until he heard Will drive off.

The professor, on the other hand, sat behind the steering wheel, eyes fixed on the road in front of him. After some moments his lips twitched into a smile.

 


	6. And the night turned red

Will was immensely glad that Hannibal possessed a sat nav system in his car, otherwise he would never have been able to find the complicated and badly signposted way to Vilnius. The voice of the sat nav was female, a bit too shrill for Will’s liking and naturally speaking Lithuanian; but he didn’t know how to change it and didn’t want risk messing up the settings, which would most certainly be another point on the list of discourtesies he’d inadvertently allowed himself to make.

So he listened to the lady’s incomprehensible instructions while driving and wondered what it would sound like if Hannibal spoke Lithuanian. Not just a one or two words, but to really talk and explain, to get lost in excitement about a story so that his voice would drift into some kind of melody. He didn’t know if Hannibal ever became truly excited; he couldn’t really imagine it. He’d seen him self-assured and then speechless, but he couldn’t imagine Hannibal growing giddy and exhilarated in the way a child did. Will couldn’t really blame him; having experienced what he had in his childhood it was perfectly understandable to not allow a single emotion from that time to filter through into his later life. It was a sad thing when a heart was broken while so young and innocent. It condemned one to carry a stone in the chest for the rest of one’s life in order to fill the void.

The congress was held in the assembly hall of the university and it was already overcrowded with people when Will arrived even though he wasn’t late. Some technicians were running around near the small stage to adjust the lightning and test the microphones. There were two large silver screens on the wall that showed the timetable of today’s lectures. Will wasn’t the first to present, but the third, which was a good thing since it gave him enough time to go through his lecture and get a grip on his nervousness by mentally emptying the room of people – a meditation technique he had perfected during the past few years and which was very useful when he had to reconstruct the chain of events at a crime scene. He looked at the small picture of himself that was depicted next to his name and the title of his lecture: he looked a bit shabby, like he always did, but somehow today he didn’t feel like that. On the contrary, he felt ... enhanced and strong; still nervously shy, but only superficially. On the inside he was filled with a new sense of contentment. Could this have something to do with the kiss? Maybe. Or with the way that Hannibal had listened to him and called him a hero? Probably. Whatever it was, it made Will almost excited to go onto the stage and share his newfound self-confidence with the audience.

Suddenly Will felt a hand on his shoulder. “Professor Graham! I am delighted you’ve found your way to us! Please, join us.”

The man speaking was Dr. Karl Waaren, a white haired 60 year old professor of legal studies from Austria who had taught at Vilnius University for almost three decades now. Will had got to know him a few years ago during the course of an international investigation into a serial murder, and since then they’d met a few times at congresses like this one. The professor was one of the quite limited circle of people who were actually interested in Will’s work at the Academy and supported him as well as they could, which was probably the only reason he’d been invited to a congress like this at all.

Dr. Waaren led him to the front row of seats where several other men of similar age, and likewise all academics of international repute, greeted Will, some of them more, some less delighted. As this was an international congress all the lectures would be held in English, which made the whole thing a lot easier for Will. Who knew, maybe he’d even learn something new?

It quickly became apparent that this wasn’t going to be the case. The first lecture was awfully boring and the speaker’s English was catastrophic; then the second one was spoken so quietly that not even the microphone and loudspeakers could make it comprehensible. Will found his attention drifting away from the congress hall again and again: back to the castle, and the fireplace, and to Hannibal’s words: “ _You are more the quiet hero, aren’t you? ... This sight is far too fascinating to be wasted.”_ And to the man in the cage, and the snails, and the stones, and the girl’s sad eyes.

_Do you have an enemy, Will?_

The polite applause of the audience ripped Will from his thoughts and he fidgeted with the folded sheet in his pocket that contained his notes, just as the first slide of his presentation appeared on the screen to announce his lecture. Dr. Waaren next to him gave him an encouraging smile and whispered, “Good luck!” before Will walked onto the stage.

He waited until the chatting of the audience had fallen silent and all eyes were on him, then he began:

“Thanatology: The science of death and its causes. It has always been of considerable interest to people – the reason someone died and when it happened – and undoubtedly these questions are also of high importance in forensic investigations. Today we have a large range of methods that help us understand the circumstances of someone’s death, whether they be natural or unnatural. Modern forensics has also developed a number of methods to find out how long somebody has been dead already. At this point I’d like to ask you a question before I go any further: how can you tell that somebody is dead?”

This was a question that Will asked in each of his lectures, for most people had a completely wrong understanding of what death actually meant in the medical sense. Even doctors could make mistakes in deciding whether to declare somebody dead or not, even though the signs were pretty clear if one was attentive.

A murmur spread in the audience; some people were shouting things like: “Cardiac arrest!” and “Brain death!” _There are many ways to kill a heart._

“Those are causes of death, yes,” Will continued, “but you can’t declare someone dead simply because there’s no measurable pulse or brain activity. There are three, or actually four, signs that a person is dead with absolute certainty: Livor mortis, Rigor mortis and decomposition of the body. Sign number four would be what we call ‘injuries that are not compatible with life’ – like if the head is missing for example.”

This earned him a few laughs from the audience.

“These signs also help forensic investigators estimate the time of death, but they are only accurate until approximately 72 hours post-mortem. What if somebody has been dead longer? Weeks, months; even years? That’s where we enter the world of Forensic Entomology...”

Will was glad he’d given the lecture a number of times already, because there was no way he’d be able to focus on the subject with all the events of the past few days still swirling around his head. So while he continued talking about insect colonisation and development on corpses, and how to estimate the time of death from the growth rates of maggots, he couldn’t help reliving the conversations with Hannibal again and again. He felt like he was missing something; like there was still a part of the story he didn’t know, and that part was so huge and abominable it felt as if it was following him with every step – a shadow that morphed as soon as Will turned his back on it. But it wasn’t until he came to the final part of his presentation that he knew what it was.

“... so apart from the length of the maggots, we can also take a look at the composition of species on the corpse. At the beginning of decomposition there are mainly blowflies; they feed on the corpse tissue and lay their eggs on the body. But after a while other species occur, too: predators and parasites that feed on the corpse tissue, but also on other species and even on each other. This can become a problem for forensics, of course, since those insects destroy evidence.”

He switched to the next slide that showed the picture of a small white maggot and another picture of a bright green fly.

“This is a larva of the blowfly Chrysomya albiceps; a species that mainly occurs in the Mediterranean, North African and South American regions and is not only beautiful to look at when in the adult stage, but also a predator on other species and, in case of food shortage, a notorious cannibal –“

He froze.

_Death is not what they deserved_. _This house is a tomb, Will._

The bones on the floor, and in the cage. So many bones and large enough...

Oh god.

No, no that wasn’t possible. Such people didn’t exist anymore. Not in reality, not in the civilised world. Hannibal wasn’t a – He couldn’t be! But oh god, it even rhymed!

Only when Will saw the questioning faces in the audience did he realise that he had stopped talking mid-sentence and was probably just staring at them with an aghast expression. The professors in the front row had raised their eyebrows and were waiting for him to continue, but Will’s mouth had gone completely dry. His heart was racing and he had to hold onto the lectern to keep his hands from shaking. It took him several more moments until his brain switched to autopilot and after clearing his throat he resumed his lecture.

The room relaxed again as he appeared to marshal his composure, but inwardly Will felt everything was falling apart. The horrible suspicion he had had all the time that now seemed to be the truth: Hannibal had drugged him the first night, had followed him into the cellar, had wanted to trap him in Mischa’s room and had, almost certainly, planned to kill him the entire time. Like he had done so many times before, given the number of human bones in the cellar. And Will had kissed him! Had kissed this man who was certainly the greatest monster that had ever inhabited a human body; had let himself be fooled by kindness and understanding at the expense of his rationality and natural mistrust. Never in his entire life had he been so blind.

Worst of all was that he had to return to the castle again. All his belongings were still in the guestroom as well as his flight ticket back to America. There was, of course, the possibility to just take Hannibal’s car and escape. He had his phone and his wallet with him, including his passport and credit card, so it wouldn’t be impossible to get away. He could just drive to the airport and book another flight; after all his life was far more precious than some plaid shirts and jeans. Yet while the rational part of his mind praised this as an optimal solution, he wasn’t quite satisfied; because despite the fact that he was horrified and frightened, there was also another emotion that operated independent from mind and reason: curiosity.

And when he thanked the audience for their attention and left the stage to the sound of applause, his decision was settled: he would return to the castle.

Will paid no attention to any of the following lectures and when the other professors gathered afterwards to get some drinks and discuss their projects, Will asked to be excused on the grounds a of headache (which wasn’t entirely a lie). Despite some protest from Dr. Waaren who begged him to stay, he left the assembly hall a short time later and drove back to Lecter Dvaras.

He didn’t have a clear plan over what to do when he arrived at the castle. Maybe Hannibal wasn’t even at home? Well, that couldn’t actually be the case, since he only owned one car which was currently in Will’s possession; but then the castle was huge and if Will was lucky, he might be able to get to his room and back without being seen. Provided that the front door was unlocked...

But then Will knew that he didn’t want that; what he really wanted was to see Hannibal. He wanted to look him in the eye when he shouted all his accusations at him and he wanted to see him struggle with the answers. And then he wanted to leave; wanted to see if he had the power to simply walk away, or if Hannibal had the power to stop him.

 

♠♣♥♦

 

Will didn’t park his car directly in front of the gate, but about a hundred meters farther away behind a row of small trees in order to hide it from sight should an immediate escape become necessary.

The castle actually looked harmless in the daylight; still old and slightly spooky but not in a truly terrifying way. Walking up to the main entrance Will thought of the first time he’d set foot on these grounds and how much had changed since then; how different everything had become since he’d knocked on the dark wooden door and Hannibal had invited him in. Hannibal, who was one of those people who stepped into one’s life and immediately took up a special position; one of those people who could only be very close friends, or lovers, or archenemies, but could never be unimportant. And even if he wasn’t a murderer and most likely a cannibal, and even if they hadn’t kissed, Will still knew that he would never be able to forget him.

The front door was unlocked and Will slipped inside, up the stairs and into his room without being seen. While packing his suitcase he pondered what he was supposed to do now that he might actually have the chance to escape undetected. Everything that was left of his mind and reason screamed at him to run as fast as he could; to call the police and get Hannibal arrested. But then Will himself was involved far too deeply in the story to simply get away. It was like Hannibal had said: once he had heard it there was no way back, and Will didn’t know if he really wanted to get away, even if he had the chance.

When he had finished packing he stood for a while in the middle of the room. Suddenly he felt stupid. Wasn’t this completely absurd? It was absurd, definitely. He had no proof for his accusations; if he went to the police right now and told them the story about the haunted castle and its possibly cannibalistic inhabitant who kept his sister’s murderer prisoner he’d get laughed at in the best case – or in the worst case he’d end up in a similar cage, but one with padded walls.

No, he had to confront Hannibal himself first. He had to ask all the questions that demanded so desperately to be asked. And if it turned out that he’d been right all the time...well, he’d see about that if it happened.

The first place he looked for Hannibal was the study, but he was neither there nor in the parlour, where he looked next. Finally a tale-telling clattering told him that the doctor was in the kitchen, probably already preparing dinner.

Will entered without a word, but he could tell that Hannibal had heard him by the way he paused while cutting potatoes. He turned round and granted Will a smile before continuing his preparations.

“You’re back early,” he said, “I hadn’t expected you before dinner.”

Will slowly approached, his eyes fixed on the hand in which Hannibal held the knife.

“What...what is it that you’re making?”

“Filet Rotisseur,“ Hannibal replied, then went over to the sink to wash his hands. “It’s actually quite a simple recipe, but I prefer not to spend the whole evening with cooking and washing up.” The corner of his left eye twitched and it looked as if he’d wanted to wink at Will but had managed to stop himself at the last moment.

Will took one more step closer. “What is it made of?”

Hannibal raised one eyebrow. “Pork loin, Will. I bought it at my local butcher’s. Why do you ask?”

Will was standing right next to Hannibal now. His eyes fixed firmly on Hannibal’s as he asked: “What else to you eat, beside pork?”

Hannibal turned round. His face was without any expression; he was unreadable again and Will felt coldness filling the space between them.

“What. Do you eat. Beside pork?” Will repeated, emphasising the pauses between the words.

Hannibal’s silence told him more than anything he could have said with words.

“Those bones down in the cellar, they aren’t pig bones, are they?” Will’s voice began to tremble.

“No.”

“Nor cow, or horse.”

“No.”

Will took one step back as Hannibal leaned slightly towards him, the knife in his hand again.

“Say it, Will,” Hannibal demanded sharply. “I want to hear it from you.”

“You’re –,“ Will swallowed once more, desperately trying to hold Hannibal’s glance while simultaneously afraid of drowning in the black of the other’s eyes . “You – you eat them. They’re human, those bones. You eat humans, Hannibal.”

Any reaction would have been better than what Will actually got, which was nothing; nothing but Hannibal’s hard, icy glance.

Will’s eyes widened. “Oh god, you are!” he whispered. Now that he knew it to be true, he realised that he had never fully believed it. It had been an idea, not a real suspicion. And now that he was eye to eye with the man he’d alleged to be a cannibal, he wondered how he’d even worked up the courage to initiate this conversation in the first place. He was waiting, but there was nothing but silence.

“You!” Will felt his voice breaking, but summoning all the courage he had left he forced himself on: “You wanted to kill me. You wanted to make me part of your collection. You drugged me and then you followed me. If I hadn’t sensed your presence down there yesterday I would have ended up like all the others who left their bones in this – tomb of a house. You’re a murderer! God, you’re a MONSTER! You –“

“Will, please,” Hannibal reached for his arm. “Please, let me explain –“

“DON’T TOUCH ME!”

With a swift movement Will grabbed a long knife from the knife block. It didn’t matter that it was a bread knife; it was still very sharp, and he pointed it at Hannibal’s throat, well aware that the other man was holding a knife, too. It took some moments of silence for Will to calm down. Then, slowly, he lowered his knife again; nevertheless prepared to defend himself against Hannibal should he make the slightest attempt to attack him.

Without even blinking once Hannibal placed the knife on the cutting board next to him. Then he lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender.

“Will,” he said. “Please listen to me. I didn’t want to kill you, not after you told me you saw her. She let you see her; and I let you see me. Don’t turn your eyes away, Will, please.”

A grin spread across Will’s face that was almost manic. “Oh no, I won’t do you that favour. Because now I’ll let you see me. And I hope it’ll haunt you.”

Hannibal lunged forward almost the same moment as Will did, and when Will raised the arm that held the knife he found that Hannibal’s fingers had closed around the blade and kept a firm hold of it. Panicking Will pulled rapidly and he saw blood dropping from where the blade had cut into Hannibal’s palm; but he still didn’t let go.

“Will, don’t!”

And Will screamed. From the depth of his lungs a suppressed cry of panic and anger wound itself free; then he pushed Hannibal away with all his force and raced out of the kitchen.

 

♠♣♥♦

 

A short time later Will found himself outside the castle where it was already growing dark; the line between the horizon and the sky blurred in the east where night was approaching. 

His destination was the car, and then away; just away from this place and its ghosts and the stories of how they’d come to be. Will had almost gotten to the street when his racing heart sank: he’d left the keys in his room, just like the rest of his stuff. He hadn’t even thought about bringing a phone or a torch. Standing on this familiar ground without a chance to get away he felt more lost than ever. Nevertheless he opened the creaking iron gate and slipped through. When he’d closed the gate behind him, a wave of relief washed over him, as if he’d shut the door of a lion’s cage.

The fact that he was now standing directly in the street wasn’t ideal, as it made him easily visible. On the other side of the road nothing but an open field awaited him, so that wasn’t ideal either. He couldn’t risk being seen by Hannibal, who was in possession of at least two knives now, so his only option was to stay hidden in the bushes that embraced the iron fence on both sides; slowly putting distance between himself and the gate by slipping from hedge to hedge. But just when Will had reached a distance where he began to tentatively feel safe again there was a movement in the shadows by the road. It could have been a deer, or a fox, or just the wind in the trees, but no matter what it was, Will’s legs sprung into action once more. In a haze of panic and delusion he sprinted off again – right into the woods in whose shadow the huge castle stood like a ghost town, its black windows gaping like dead eyes.

Exhausted and disorientated Will sank against a trunk after a while. He was breathing heavily and the cold air burned in his throat. The last rays of the sinking sun seeped through the trees and turned the night red for a moment until it disappeared completely and left nothing but darkness. Will watched the scene, growing calmer.  The darkness meant time to think; it meant safety.

He hadn’t run deep into the forest – the roof of the castle was still peeking up over the trees – but he was sure Hannibal wouldn’t come to find him here. Running his eyes over the scene around him, the place suddenly struck him as familiar. The shape of the trees, the mushrooms growing all over the place, the trunk ... Will stood up to look at where he’d been sitting just moments ago. The wood looked old and rotten, still slightly wet from the rain, but the shape of the trunk was distinctive. He’d been here before. In his dreams.

 And then they appeared, right in front of his feet: a tiny red glowing stone, and then a blue one, and a yellow, and another, and another. Slowly, not even daring to breathe, Will set his feet into motion in order to follow the trail that led right into the heart of the forest.

_“Branga-branga-brangakmeniai, jie veda mane link tavęs.”_

He could almost hear her sing.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The cannibal blowflies really exist and they are very beautiful (you can click [here](http://www.hispabase.com/galeria/albums/userpics/10895/_MG_7806_R_800_2-2.jpg) if you want to see a picture). I had the chance to work with this species for my bachelor thesis on Forensic Entomology and most of the information in Will's lecture comes from my research on the topic. I hope I didn't bore you with all that forensic stuff, but somehow I couldn't stop myself :D At least I can say this was a highly educational chapter ;)  
> And what's really funny: I just recently found out that in one of the early episodes of the series it is mentioned that Will once wrote a monograph on Forensic Entomology, too, which totally blew my mind, because I did NOT know that when I started my thesis writing! :D Oh dear, this show is slowly taking over my entire life (and I love it) ;)


	7. As they captured in stone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short warning before you start reading this chapter: There will explicit mentions of cannibalism and murder. I presume you all have read the tags and it's Hannibal we're talking about so that shouldn't be surprising, but just so you are prepared: We're getting to the dark stuff.
> 
> This fic is slowly drawing to a close, folks! After this one there are only two more chapters to come and I hope to finish it before the end of November, so I'm all done here when the Christmas mood overcomes us. ;) Thanks to all of you who are still here and enjoy my little story! I'm having so much fun writing this for you! :)

Will followed the shimmering trail, his eyes fixed on the forest ground where one colourful stone after the other appeared and vanished as soon as Will had walked past it. His shoes breaking sticks and crushing leafs with every step seemed like an unholy sound in the silence of this dark yet magical place. He thought about the tales of elves and forest fairies; creatures that were beautiful and fascinating, but also deadly and irresistible in their charm that bound every poor soul that was unable to withstand their fateful song. Maybe he himself had fallen for the same charm? Spellbound by Hannibal’s kindness and seduced by his attractiveness, then betrayed by his own blindness and now following, blindly again, a trail of fantasy stones that led him into the dark; laid out by a ghost whose mere existence he’d denied until some days ago. Yet now, strangely enough, he somehow trusted her and the way she led him.

Some minutes later he found himself on a clearing and the sight in front of him took Will’s breath away: In the centre of it stood a large fountain on top of which an angel statue sat that raised one hand in an urging manner. The whole fountain was overgrown with ivy and grass and the stone had cracked at various places; but what truly stunned Will were the fireflies. The air was filled with their tiny pulsating light bodies that illuminated the scenery like candles in a church and Will didn’t dare to step closer, for it felt like entering a sacred place without permission.

Shy and fragile, her silvery glow fading among the bright shine of the fireflies, Mischa peeked up behind the head of the angel, her thin arms slung around the statue’s neck. Only when he saw her eyes meeting his, a little nod from her declaring permission, did Will come closer to the fountain. The fireflies’ dance became hectic as if Will’s presence put them into turmoil. Only now he noticed that they were flying in a circle all the time, like a tiny tornado of light that had its origin on a spot right in front of the fountain. There, on the forest ground where the path of the gemstones ended, a symbol appeared; it was the same mysterious colourful circle Will had seen in Mischa’s nursery, only now it was even brighter and a lot bigger.

When he came closer the swarm of fireflies became wild, as if they wanted to shoo away an unwanted intruder and Will took a few steps back, but Mischa raised a hand and the swarm’s frenzy calmed down again and slowly they all settled down on the statue of the angel, making its shape shine in the darkness of the forest. Will tilted his head to study the symbol more thoroughly. It had an amazing symmetry he hadn’t noticed before: within the outer circle there was another and inside of it were two triangles, one of them upside down, that overlapped in the middle where two smaller circles lay intertwined with each other. Will was sure, so absolutely sure that he’d seen this symbol before. But where? When? His job actually didn’t provide him with much opportunity to witness ghost related rituals, let alone those that involved a magic circle. Because that’s what this was, right? A spell to summon demons, use their power as they were not able to leave the circle, and then banish them again later. It reminded him of Wicca, a cult that had gained huge popularity in the recent years due to the return of pagan religions. Will hadn’t paid much attention to it, since he was very critical towards any kind of religion and strangely dressed 21st-century alchemists who smoked funny herbs and prayed to the moon didn’t exactly occupy a high range in his list of trustable people. He always did his best not to get in contact with people of this sort, but there had been this one case once...

Retrospectively, Will wasn’t even sure if the man was a member of the Wicca cult. Did they even practise ghost rituals? Nevertheless there had been a magic circle; it had been used for some kind of exorcism where two young men had tried to free a woman who allegedly had been possessed by a demon. They had stripped her, tied her to the bed and drawn a magic spell circle on the floor at the end of the bed. Then one of the men had started reading magic words to her to “elicit the demon” the other had started pouring hot wax over the woman’s torso, forming strange symbols and runes and naturally the woman had started screaming in pain and had begged for them to stop. Apparently this had been too much for the men, so one of them had simply taken a pillow and pressed it to the woman’s face until she stopped screaming – and also breathing. It had been one of the strangest crime scenes Will had ever visited. That was four years ago, shortly before he’d retreated from field work and had taken up his teaching job at the Academy.

The magic circle used for that ritual had been different from the one Will saw before himself now, but the semblance in the structure clearly indicated a similar purpose. The only question remained: Why did Mischa want him to see this? Will raised his eyes to the little girl who was still sitting on the angel’s shoulders and looked at him with her sad eyes.

“What is it, Mischa?” Will whispered, noticing a short twitch running through her body when she heard him say her name. “What does it mean?”

She remained motionless for a moment; then she slowly lifted her hand and showed her palm to Will. He’d expected it to be silvery and transparent like the rest of her body, but it wasn’t. It was crimson, shining and intense, like freshly wounded flesh. Will startled at the sight and instinctively clenched his fists; his empathy made the pain almost physical. Mischa blinked a few times, then she lowered her head, her crimson hand still held up, and her eyes wandered to a point on the lower part of the fountain. Will followed her glance and there, just below the rim of the basin, he found a matching handprint, small and blazing red, _crimson_. Will knew what to do; he knew it and he couldn’t stop himself. With his eyes fixed on Mischa’s he lifted his own hand and gently put it over the handprint.

In that very moment chaos awoke around him. The fireflies swarmed out in a wild buzz, momentarily blinding him with the intensity of their light. Will could feel the air move with the vibration of thousands of tiny wings whirring around him. Amidst their frenzy, with a small whizzing sound, the magic circle vanished and Mischa with it; leaving the clearing to Will and the flies.

Suddenly, an urgent instinct to flee hit Will and he turned round and raced off, hoping to be on the right track back to the castle. This time no ghost stones showed him the way.

 

♠♣♥♦

 

Hannibal was standing at the window, watching the sun rise; finally, after hours of waiting the horizon lightened up and a warm orange light flooded the sky from the east. He had studied the night many times, had found a never ending fascination in the dark and thereby almost forgotten the beauty light could bring. It was beautiful watching the sun bathe the landscape in it; the thin fog that was caught in the tree tops of the forest slowly vanished or sunk down to the lower fields in the vale. It was a sight made for a painting.

He should indulge in this more often, he thought. So many mornings had come and gone in his life and he had paid so little attention to their beauty. Maybe he was supposed to stay here in Lithuania amidst the wilderness and the fog. Here, in this castle that had belonged to his ancestors and now belonged to him alone, just like all its secrets. But he didn’t want these secrets to be his alone anymore; for the first time in his life he wanted to share them, lay them bare before the feet of this man that had somehow found a way into a place of his mind palace that he’d kept so thoroughly locked for years. How had this utter stranger managed to lift the veil and look into the face behind it and see – see what had been hidden so well for all this time? Was it really just Mischa’s appearance that made it happen? Hannibal couldn’t name this connection he felt to Will; it wasn’t friendship, they didn’t know each other well enough for that and also they clearly didn’t trust each other. It wasn’t love either, even though they’d kissed and Hannibal had liked it very much and would love to do it again, perhaps even go further. It was something else, something deep and genuine and somehow meant to be. And it had completely disarmed him.

Now he was waiting. He hoped, wanted, needed for Will to return. The car was still parked by the side of the road and the fact that all his belongings were still in the guestroom made it very unlikely that Will had left the castle for good. Nevertheless Hannibal hadn’t seen him even though he’d been standing at the window the whole night, constantly keeping an eye on the gate which was the only direct way out of the property – unless someone wanted to cross the deep woods that surrounded the castle on all the other sides. But Will hadn’t come back, and now the dawn felt like a curtain rising on an empty stage. The show was cancelled; or it simply hadn’t begun yet. He hoped for the latter.

Just when he was about to turn away from the window with a sigh he suddenly saw him. Will was standing beneath the huge maple tree, golden leafs raining down on him from the wind gently moving the branches. He stood completely still, not looking up to Hannibal, who was now standing so close to the window that his nose almost touched the glass. Then Will started walking, crossing the lawn and approaching the graveyard where he stopped at Mischa’s grave. Hannibal watched him lift one hand and gently stroke over the tomb, almost like a caress; then he squatted down next to the grave and began surveying the bowl of gemstones.

Hannibal turned on the spot and rushed downstairs.

 

♠♣♥♦

 

 “Will?”

The addressed didn’t turn his head at the call, but he straightened up, taking a few steps back from the grave.

“Will?” Hannibal repeated, carefully coming closer, as if he feared to chase the other man away.

Will didn’t answer, but now turned around to look Hannibal in the eye.  He looked tired but resolute and even gave a faint smile at the sight of the doctor.

“I was worried you were gone,” Hannibal confessed.

Will shook his head. “I spent the night in the forest, clearing my head. I needed time to think, to look at you and who you are from a distance to get the whole picture. I wanted to see, to understand.”

“And what did you see, Will?”

 “Someone who has suffered, still does. Someone who fears his past and yet is controlled by it, bound; like a spell.”

Will had chosen his words with care and awaited Hannibal’s reaction. It took the other a moment to understand.

“You have seen the circle?” The way Hannibal said it didn’t make it sound like a question.

“She showed me,” Will replied. “It is a magic circle, isn’t it? Something to summon ghosts and demons.”

Hannibal lowered his head, breaking eye contact with Will. It wasn’t shame; it was simply because of the memories that were coming back.

“To summon them,” Will continued, bowing down to pick a stone from the bowl, weighing it in his hand. It was red. “Or rather to bind them, Hannibal? To condemn them to stay in this world where they don’t belong.”

Hannibal was still quiet; watching Will drop the stone back into the bowl and then turn around to face him again.

“There is blood on her hands,” Will said, “just like on yours, even though you washed it of years ago. And her eyes, Hannibal, have you seen them? How sad she looks. She doesn’t belong here; she’s a restless soul; still wandering this earth, but she cannot leave. You’ve made her stay.”

“I couldn’t let her go.” Hannibal’s voice was not more than a whisper and he said it more to the ground than to Will who now put a hand on Hannibal’s arm.

“She is suffering, Hannibal. She didn’t find her peace, you didn’t let her. With her soul still bound to this earth she cannot enter the afterlife.”

Will came one step closer and gently cupped Hannibal’s chin, tilting his head up to meet his eyes again. “What you have is just a fragment of her,” he whispered. “An empty shell, a shadow. You can’t outwit death like that.”

Hannibal turned his eyes away before he answered: “I felt guilty.”

“For her death?” Will asked.

“For hers and the one of many others.”

From Will’s expression it was clear that he demanded Hannibal to elaborate.

“Let’s go inside for this discussion,” Hannibal suggested, gently placing a hand on Will’s back to lead him back to the castle.

 

♠♣♥♦

 

They had sat down in the parlour in front of the fire again that Hannibal had lit. It was far too early for whiskey, so Hannibal made them two cups of freshly brewed coffee, the delicious scent of which spread a comforting atmosphere in the room. It had been a good idea to come inside. On the graveyard every word had felt heavy, grave like the tombs around them. Here, with the fire crackling in the background, the ease he’d felt two evenings ago returned and Will had to fight the inner impulse to forgive Hannibal immediately, even before hearing his story. It wasn’t really his empathy. That didn’t make him forgive, it only made him understand. But this story wasn’t Hannibal’s alone; he, Will, was also part of it, and if Hannibal felt guilty he felt guilty, too. It was a strange mechanism, and maybe it wasn’t forgiveness either, but for now he had no better word for it.

Having both taken up their respective positions again, Hannibal on the sofa and Will in one of the winged chairs, they stared at the fire for a moment. They knew that there were dark things on the agenda and for now no one of them was in a hurry to start the discussion. Will nipped at his coffee; a thousand questions lingering on his tongue, but none of them shaped into words yet.

“I didn’t eat them.”

Hannibal’s statement came out of nowhere and surprised Will, who had almost forgotten about the human bones in the cellar.

“But you killed them,” Will said.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Hannibal’s gaze got lost in the fire. In the bright light of the morning he couldn’t hide the tears gathering in his eyes.

“I fed them to the pig. Just like he did to me once.”

Will sat up in his chair and gripped his cup more firmly. “He did what?”

“He fed me,” Hannibal whispered, “like a pig. The others were cheering. It made me sick.”

Will’s voice was trembling when he asked the next question: “What did they feed you with?”

“Her.”

_Oh god._ There were tears swelling in Will’s eyes and he didn’t dare to blink, fearing that he’d lose them. Hannibal smiled at him sadly.

“I told you this story would become a lot darker,” he said. “Do you want me to tell you about it?”

Will swallowed the rest of his tears and then nodded, even if he wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear it.

“When they had killed her, had me watch them slice her throat and see her eyes fall dead, they let go of her body, threw her to the floor as if she were just a chunk of meat. They laughed. They were frenzied and very drunk, since they had pillaged our wine cellar shortly beforehand. I was starving; they hadn’t let me eat for days, taking anything away from me that could have been nutritious in any way. When I passed out one day, they would beat me until I woke up again, yelling at me that I was weak and a coward. Mischa had been given some food, but she wasn’t allowed to share it with me. When on the fourth day I screamed at them that I was hungry, one of them took a knife from the knife block in the kitchen, went over to where Mischa stood and simply –“ Hannibal’s voice died at that point and he turned his eyes away to the window.

Will rose from his chair and came over to the sofa, taking a stand behind the backrest and laying his hands on Hannibal’s shoulders; figuring that it made it easier this way for the other man to talk if he didn’t have to look Will in the eye.

“ – slashed her throat,” Hannibal completed his sentence, still struggling to find his voice. “’We provided you some food here,’ they said, ‘Get yourself a piece, but be quick; otherwise the meat will rot and fester and then she won’t be of use anymore.’ I refused, of course, traumatised too severely to even fully realise what he meant. I can’t remember exactly what they did then, the memory of those moments has never returned, but I know that they forced me to cut off one of her hands and tear the skin away, until I had revealed the crimson flesh underneath. I think they made me cook it in some way. I just know it was hot and I almost burned my tongue eating it.”

Will ran his hands over Hannibal’s upper arms and back to his shoulders, not sure whether he tried to calm Hannibal by that or rather himself. There was nothing he could say, nothing he could do. It felt like the story was filling out his whole life, apportioning the pain that was too great for one moment alone.

“They must have left shortly afterwards,” Hannibal continued, “because the next thing I remember is dragging Mischa’s body into the forest, to the fountain where we’d played so often; and performing the ritual to bind her to these grounds; I captured her soul in the stones. I had never tried it before, never actually expected it to work, but back then it was the only thing I could do. I couldn’t leave her behind.”

“And then?” Will asked gently, encouraging him to go on.

“Then I buried her; right in the spot where she had had that accident once. It was a special place and it reminded me of her. When I had finished I started burying my parents, too. I was found by a passer-by, kneeling on the ground and frantically digging a hole, crying and screaming while doing it. I was brought to the hospital then. The rest of the story you know.”

“Not entirely, I’m afraid,” Will said. “’The pig’, you said, do you mean the man in the cage by that?”

“He is nothing more than that. Even though I’m sure he’s an insult even for pigs,” Hannibal snorted; then he fell quiet again while Will continued stroking his shoulders like a gentle massage.

“I had to find them, Will.” He sounded so tired. “They had to repay, that was all that I could think about. I hadn’t returned to the castle since I’d been taken away; I didn’t even know if my ghost-ritual had worked, but I knew I would do absolutely everything to find these men again. I owed her that. She had been so innocent, so young. They should have killed me instead; I had been rebellious and loud while she’d always kept quiet, silently enduring their torture during the days they kept us prisoner. I felt like it was all my fault and that I wasn’t allowed to live on like that. Breathing felt like a betrayal, but I couldn’t kill myself; that was just something I couldn’t do. So the only thing that was left for me was to spend my life looking for them; and finally, some years ago, I got on the track of one of them. I brought him here and held him like a pig: dirty and undignified like he deserved it. And I made him eat what I had to eat.”

“Human meat,” Will murmured.

“Occasionally, yes. Sometimes I didn’t give him any food for days; and then a leg, an arm, sometimes even organs. I forced him to eat it, raw and bloody,” Hannibal’s voice had turned cold and emotionless.

“Did you intend to turn me into one of his meals, too?” Will asked, careful but not afraid of the answer.

At that Hannibal turned around and put one hand on top of Will’s. “I considered it at the beginning, but found that I couldn’t; even before you told me you were able to see Mischa.”

Will tilted his head in slight surprise. “Why?”

Hannibal run his thumb over the back of Will’s hand, then looked up to meet his glance. “I don’t know. There is something about you, Will Graham. Something that made you untouchable. At least in that way.”

The intensity in Hannibal’s eyes was burning and Will felt his face heat up. When Hannibal realised it, he drew a small smile and let his hand fall away.

“This is a lot to process for you, I’m sure. And I understand if you have many more questions, but since we both haven’t slept last night and I can tell that you’re very tired, I suggest we both go to bed and get some sleep.”

Will nodded, realising that he’d suppressed a yawn the whole time that he now released.

“We will figure this out. Together,” he said, determined not to leave the room before hearing Hannibal agree.

“We will, I promise,” the other said. Then they both made their way to their bedrooms.

 

♠♣♥♦

 

Will had never been one to fall asleep easily, being used to nightmares and panic attacks it was a miracle if he slept through a whole night for once, but during the day it was outright impossible; even more so with his mind still trying to process all the events of the past few days while he lay on the bed in the guestroom.

He’d lowered the blinds to give his restless mind the impression of night, but every time he closed his eyes the images came back again: two children and a horde of rampant men, a hand of crimson flesh, a boy who performed a ritual, who buried his sister all on his own; and his parents. It was a vision that felt so real that it became more than just pictures: there were voices, sounds and even smell. Will’s empathy allowed him to create a complete atmosphere in his head, whether or not it had really bechanced that way. The smell was the strongest of these imaginations: He smelled fear, the rusty scent of fresh blood, the wet leaves on soiled forest ground, Hannibal.

It was the last one that attracted his attention the most, and Will felt a sudden, very strong urge to smell it again. This scent that Hannibal poured, that was so distinctively his own. Will hadn’t paid much attention to it, but his subconsciousness clearly must have, otherwise the memory of it wouldn’t be so strong now. He turned to his side, facing the door now, asking himself what Hannibal was thinking about in that very moment. Will was pretty certain the other wasn’t able to sleep as well. And if that was the case...

The black and white tiles on the floor of the corridor felt colder than Will had imagined as he walked barefoot down the hall. He knew where Hannibal’s bedroom was; he’d watched him enter it after they’d separated a few hours ago. And when he stood before the door, raising a hand to knock, he had no idea what he wanted to happen. Maybe they’d talk, maybe they’d fall asleep; maybe Hannibal was asleep already and Will would just stand there and smell him. He’d be content with all of these scenarios. This was their story now; a tale they shared, and Will wanted to see it through to the end.

 


	8. A dream of their own

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised you some Sexual Tension, right? So here it comes... ;) This is my first attempt on writing a smut scene, so please be gentle with me.  
> My special thanks go to [PKA](http://archiveofourown.org/users/PKA/), who listened to me whine about having to write the first scene of this chapter and then even read it through and gave me lots of really helpful advice.  
> Thank you for being my smut-beta! (and I hereby officially declare this a thing) :D 
> 
> Apart from that, the whole chapter has been beta-ed by the lovely [MissDisoriental](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MissDisoriental). :)

Will’s knocking remained unanswered at first – he began to wonder whether Hannibal was asleep after all. Just because the story he’d heard kept Will awake didn’t mean it necessarily had the same effect on Hannibal, who’d been living with the knowledge for decades. At some point he must have learned to sleep through the nightmares. Will knocked again, slightly louder, and this time heard a muted “Yes” coming from inside.

He found Hannibal on his bed, lying on top of the dark red counterpane. He was dressed in a burgundy dressing gown and, at least from Will’s point of view, not much else. Having propped himself up on various pillows he seemed to be deeply absorbed in some kind of arts magazine. Will kept his hand on the door handle, unsure whether to close the door from the inside or awkwardly from the outside after leaving without a word.

“You, um...” began Will, trying to think about why he’d turned up at Hannibal’s bedroom door, but finding he didn’t really have an explanation. “You’re up.”

This was probably the least inspirational statement he could have devised and he felt the urge to put his hands over his ears to block out the awkward silence that was spreading between them.

Hannibal smiled at him with a hint of smugness. “So are you.”

Will knew he was blushing, because Hannibal’s smile grew even wider with every second that passed while he waited for a reaction. Will decided that he really should have planned for this; he should at least have come up with something to say beforehand.

“I – I think I should go,” Will finally answered, already on the verge of leaving when Hannibal sat up on the bed and put his magazine to the side.

“Don’t you want to tell me first why you came here?”

Will started massaging his neck sheepishly. “I just wanted to _...” Smell you, I wanted to smell you and therefore I need to come closer. May I come closer?_ The words were so intense that Will feared he’d actually said them out loud; but he hadn’t, and wouldn’t either. He couldn’t possibly admit to such a thought; it was too weird a thing to want. Instead he started fidgeting with the hem of his shirt, suddenly very interested in it, while Hannibal was still wearing his complacent smile.

“You clearly came here with an intention, Will. Do you want me to guess?”

Hannibal appeared to be so utterly relaxed and poised that it made Will feel like a small boy standing in front of a teacher. And he hated feeling so small. He had felt small for most of his life but now, he decided, was not the time for it. He knew why he’d come here; he was a grown man in possession of an experienced body who knew exactly what feeling he was currently undergoing: Something very different from how a small boy would feel. Slowly approached to the bed, step by step, while keeping his eyes fixed on Hannibal’s; where a distinct glint of excitement had appeared, growing and shining brighter with each of Will’s steps.

“You have trouble sleeping, I assume,” Hannibal suggested, shifting further backwards when Will stopped by the edge of the bed, looking down at him with dark, widened pupils. “Do you want me to do something about that?”

“I don’t know,” Will replied, his voice low and – to his surprise – self-confident. “Is there something you think you could do?”

“Well, I could certainly think of one or two things.” Hannibal leaned back across the bed and unfolded his legs, which Will took as an invitation to slowly sit down next to him. He didn’t know what the next step in their little dance was, but he was sure that neither he nor Hannibal were under any illusion about what _could_ happen. The cocoon was forming again, embracing that secret hidden space that was entirely their own. In his mind Will could see it silently unfurl and grow, weaved in a mesh of branches, or was it antlers? Its edges were sharp and the surface smooth and white. Maybe there were antlers; it was a dangerous space after all.

Hannibal parted his legs further and patted the space between them, beckoning Will to come closer. Slowly, and unaware of his own movements, Will shifted until he was kneeling directly in front of Hannibal. He could smell him very distinctly from this position: musky and heavy with bit of sweat and warmth, strengthened by an underlying fragrance that was subtle enough to mix with Hannibal’s own scent without altering it. Will found he liked it, even though he was normally more attuned to the sweet, flowery scent of women’s perfumes.

“Turn round, Will,” Hannibal instructed, then took hold of Will’s shoulders to manoeuvre him so he was sitting with his back to Hannibal;  now so close that he could feel Hannibal’s warmth radiating through the thin layers of his shirt.

“I think a massage would make a good start,” Hannibal said, not specifying what it was he intended to get started. “And I need you to remove your shirt for that.” He tugged suggestively at the hem and in one swift movement Will had pulled it over his head and dropped it on the bed next to him. Hannibal ran his hands up and down Will’s spine a few times before he started kneading the muscles in his shoulders.

“You are so incredibly tense here Will. Why is that? Is it the strain of the past few days; or am I making you nervous?”

_Both_ , Will thought, but all he replied was: “I don’t know.” It was indeed making him slightly nervous; the way Hannibal had reassumed his previous self-confidence, making him unreadable for Will. Having seen him so vulnerable and open, it now felt as if Will had been shut out of a room he’d only tentatively begun to explore. The mask had to fall again, he decided; defence down on _both_ sides.

Hannibal’s hands had now worked their way down his back until they found the waistband of his pyjamas where he stopped, his fingers hovering mere inches above Will’s skin. He leaned forward; tucking his head over Will’s shoulder so Will felt warm breath caressing his ear when Hannibal said: “Do you want me to continue?”

“Where?” Will asked, realising that his breath had sped up at the mere thought of Hannibal exploring his body further...south.

Hannibal’s hands trailed suggestively round Will’s waist and began stroking up and down his thighs. “Here, for example.”

Will now had the certain feeling that they were leaving the grounds of a regular massage, but so far he was enjoying it immensely – so much, in fact, that he couldn’t suppress a moan when Hannibal hooked his fingers beneath the waistband and shoved the pyjama pants down entirely. Lying there completely naked, feeling the softness of the bedspread beneath him and Hannibal’s gaze over his shoulder with his eyes wandering over the curves and dips of Will’s body, was fuelling his arousal to a point where it could no longer be denied or ignored.

He heard Hannibal make a low growling noise behind him before he let go of Will and moved to the other side of the bed; parting Will’s legs now to sit between them. Will let his head sink down on the pillow, staring at the ceiling as Hannibal’s hands began massaging again. Starting at Will’s ankles, then up to his calves, upwards, upwards to his thighs, further upwards... When he’d reached his waist, deliberately ignoring the centre where Will craved for his touch the most, Will suddenly raised his head again.

“Stop!”

Hannibal’s hands paused and he looked at Will in confusion.

“It’s unfair if I’m the only one here who’s naked.” Will folded his hands behind his head, stabilising it in order to maintain eye contact. “You can share with me; but only if you lay down your armour.”

An impish smile grew on Hannibal’s face and with a few quick movements he had stripped down to his boxers; then he crawled forward on his knees and elbows until he was leaning over Will, their faces only inches apart.

“The rest,” Hannibal whispered directly into Will’s ear and made a shiver run down his spine, “you have to remove yourself.”

Will realised he was rather breathless and his hands were slightly shaking as he slowly hooked his fingers under the waistband of Hannibal’s boxers, unsure whether to continue. Hannibal’s smile only grew wider with Will’s hesitation. “So shy now, Will? You’ve bared me already in so many ways, and now you let yourself be stopped by a single layer of clothing?”

Will swallowed. Then, inch by inch, he pulled down the waistband, revealing Hannibal’s own unmistakable arousal.

“Very good Will,” Hannibal whispered, tugging off his boxers completely when Will had pulled them down to his knees. He sat back on his heels to throw their clothes off the bed. Seconds later he was back, lowering his body until he was almost, _almost_ touching Will’s own.

“And now?” he asked, sinking one of his hands into Will’s curls. “Shall I continue with your massage? Or do you have a better idea?”

Will didn’t answer; at this point he had lost his words and was sure that however hard he tried – he wouldn’t be able to find them again anytime soon. He was rigid and motionless, lost in the blown-black pupils surrounded by warm amber. Not even daring to blink, fearing he’d fall into endless night if he lost contact with them even for a moment, he bent his knees, caging Hannibal in as he slung his arms around his back and pulled him down.

The first contact of skin on skin made them both moan. Will arched his back up, his head falling down and then he closed his eyes. Falling, falling, endless night, and warmth pooling in his belly and groin when Hannibal began rocking against him. It was too sensual, too much; and yet he was craving for more, chasing the friction as Hannibal sped up his pace with Will’s increasing panting. He heard Hannibal whisper his name, over and over again, disrupted by gasps coming from both of them while their bodies slid against each other until finally, with the touch of their lips, they first fell out of rhythm and then over the edge together. Falling, still falling, and kissing each other through it until the sensation gently eased away and they were brought up to the surface again.

Will kept his eyes closed for a moment, taking some deep breaths to calm his racing heart and stop his body from trembling too much from the aftershocks. When he finally opened them, he found Hannibal’s face right above his, the smirk now replaced by a warm smile. Will couldn’t help smiling back at him with a sigh. It was more than physical relief; it was a feeling of weightlessness that ran through his entire body, taking all the grave emotions of the past few days with it as they vanished with Will’s next exhale.

He expected Hannibal to say something, commenting in the way he usually did, but he remained silent. Instead he rolled off of Will so they were lying side by side. Will was faintly aware of Hannibal cleaning both their chests with a tissue he’d picked from a box on his nightstand; after which he pulled the counterpane out from beneath their bodies and covered them both with it.

Will turned to his side, shifting backwards until he felt the warmth of Hannibal’s body against his back and now finally – finally – he drifted off to sleep.

 

♠♣♥♦

 

It was already growing dark outside when Will awoke and he figured he must have slept through the whole afternoon. With his eyes still closed he tried to recall what his dreams had been about. There had been silence and moonlight and waves rolling ashore, again and again with the patience of thousands of years. It had been a pleasant dream – peaceful for a change – even though he knew such serenity wasn’t going to last; he’d known it then and he knew it now. Just like the tidal waves, peace was always coming and going.

When he turned on his side the images vanished and refused to come back, no matter how hard he tried. Instead he was facing Hannibal who seemed to still be fast asleep; his breath coming calmly and one of his hands resting on the sheets between the two of them. Will felt the urge to touch him, but didn’t; somehow fearing he could stir something up. It was like watching a lion sleep: majestic and graceful, but always dangerous and lying in wait. He let one hand hover over Hannibal’s head, not touching, just feeling the closeness tickling like electricity in his palm and realised he didn’t fear him. Who could blame the lion for hunting and killing? Who could deny him what was part of his nature? Will didn’t feel like the prey; he was simply an admirer of the wilderness, witnessing the calm spectacle of a satisfied hunger.

A moment later Hannibal’s eyes fluttered open and he looked at Will dreamily before closing them again.

“Hannibal?” Will whispered.

“Hmm?”

Will considered his next words for a moment, but ultimately found that he needed to say them now while Hannibal was still so emotionally open and obtainable. “Let her go. Set her free.”

Hannibal abruptly opened his eyes again, but gave no answer.

“She’s suffering, Hannibal. She doesn’t belong here. Let her find her peace so you can find yours. This life you’re living isn’t sustainable.” Will’s words were gentle, but there was a resoluteness behind them that left no room for compromise.

Hannibal turned onto his back, his glance directed towards the ceiling. “I can’t,” he said quietly. “She’s the last one I have left. Without her I’m alone.”

“No,” Will replied, sliding closer, “You’re not, not anymore. Come with me.”

Hannibal turned his head, looking at Will with fondness. “Where would you take us?”

“Well, I have a farmhouse; it’s small, but – “ It was small, indeed, and far away from civilisation; old and shabby with a garage full of junk. Not at all compatible with Hannibal’s standards. And then there were the dogs...

“I keep my dogs there,” Will continued shyly. “They smell a bit and can sometimes be loud, but I keep them clean and they’re well-behaved.”

He frowned when Hannibal gave no reaction and added “I, um, I mean we could always look for something else. I’m sure we could...“

“No, Will.” Hannibal was smiling at him. “It sounds wonderful. I appreciate your offer.”

“So you’ll come?”

“I would have to leave her behind,” Hannibal murmured, more to himself than to Will; but it didn’t sound desperate anymore, rather – pensive.

“Only the ghost of her, Hannibal. Her true self is long gone already. Give her the peace she yearns for, and then leave with me.”

Hannibal cupped Will’s cheek with one hand and started stroking his thumb caressingly over his jaw.

 “Setting her free demands a ritual,” he said contemplatively. “Very similar to the one I performed when I bound her to these grounds. I haven’t done it again since that time and I’m afraid I can’t remember the exact procedural steps; but I think I know where to start looking for the answer.” He pulled back the blanket and got out of bed. Will looked at him with a questioning glance.

A soft smile appeared on Hannibal’s face. “Come, get up. I want to show you something.”

 

♠♣♥♦

 

The library was large enough that Will’s own small home would have completely fitted into it. It extended over three floors, the upper two of which protruded into the room in the form of balconies, and it was filled to the roof with bookshelves. Will had never seen so many books in one place: he only possessed one single bookshelf that was mostly filled with scientific literature and one or two cheap novels. He’d never had a keen interest in fiction. Most of all he disliked crime novels, as they were always either very unrealistic or stimulated his receptive imagination far too much. That didn’t mean he wasn’t educated in matters of literature; he’d read widely, including all the important works of Shakespeare, Homer and Plato. He hadn’t found them particularly enjoyable, but it was educational to take a look at the way great minds worked to figure out if his own might share some of their mechanics; it helped him understand.

“The pride of my family,” Hannibal explained as he and Will walked further into the room. “The library of my ancestors. Books from the early 18th century as well as modern works; carefully collected and neatly ordered, treated with love and respect by generations of the Lecter family.” He paused. “It’s my most precious heritage: a source of knowledge and inspiration.”

Will walked around the ground floor, unable to tear his eyes away from the endless rows of book spines: some coated in leather, some hardcover; all of them sorted, none looking out of place.

Hannibal walked up to where Will stood and gently rested a hand on his waist. “When I was a boy I spent hours here every day. I could get lost in a good book and would not let go of it until I had read it all the way through. Even today I find myself seeking refuge here more and more often; reading the same stories over and over again until they’ve become a home for me.”

Will turned round and looked at Hannibal’s face, which once again showed that hint of sadness. He wondered if Hannibal had a favourite book: a secret, silly one that he wouldn’t tell anyone about, but only read when he was alone. A trashy novel, a corny romance, a children’s book maybe? All the books in there seemed so intellectual; Will could hardly imagine someone indulging in reading any of them over and over again. The whole shelf in front of him was filled with old medical journals.

“What kind of book would a young boy look for in this library?” he asked.

Hannibal smiled, immediately catching the hint. Gently he took Will’s hand and led him to the narrow staircase that extended to the upper floor. “I’d like to show you.”

The books up there looked a lot more accessible to Will and seemed to contain fiction rather than academic literature. Hannibal let go of his hand when they reached a shelf which was probably the only one in the whole library that was remotely chaotic. The books had spines in different colours and weren’t ordered by any apparent system. Hannibal reached determinedly for a small red book, sitting slightly aslant between the others, and gave it to Will so he could take a look at it. The title was written in Lithuanian, but by the pictures on the cover it was unmistakably identifiable as a spiritual guide: a book on ghosts.

“This,” Hannibal said, as he observed the book over Will’s shoulder, “was mine and my sister’s favourite. Our father once bought it for us at an auction of rare magic books. He didn’t believe in any of the things that were written there; he just loved eerie stories and he knew we loved them, too. So he brought us home this book and we devoured it; read it to each other many times. Mostly I read it to her, since she was too young to decipher the old letters it was written in.”

Will walked over to a table by the window and opened the book in the middle. A terrifyingly accurate depiction of a human skull stared back at him, right in the centre of the page. The picture was surrounded by a circle of letters and symbols, most of which Will had never seen before. Some seemed to be written in the Latin alphabet, some of them looked Cyrillic, some even Arabic.

“It looks – “ Will couldn’t find the right words to describe it, but looking at the symbols gave him the creeps. “Evil,” he finally said.

“Only if one doesn’t understand how to use it.”

Hannibal reached for the book and began leafing through it until he opened it on a page that contained the picture of a circle that looked very familiar to Will.

“That’s the one I saw,” he whispered with widened eyes. Seeing the symbol depicted on a printed page, not formed by transparent stones in the middle of a forest, made the whole thing a lot less mystical.

“It’s the one I used in order to bind her to these grounds,” Hannibal confirmed. “There are many more versions, but according to the book this is the most powerful.”

Will took a deep breath before he spoke the next words: “How is it used?”

Hannibal ran a finger over the paper, connecting points on the depiction with invisible lines while he began explaining. “This circle can bind a single soul, or numerous ones. Depending on the symmetry it can summon or banish a ghost. The soul isn’t trapped inside the circle, but free to move around within the distance of a few hundred meters. In Mischa’s case this applies to the premises of the castle; within these borders she’s able to move freely, but she can’t go any farther.”

Hannibal flicked over the page and pointed at a different magic circle that looked like a mirror-inverted version of the first one. “With this circle one can set a bound soul free again. This is what we need to use.”

Even though he tried to hide it, Will saw tears gather in Hannibal’s eyes at the words.

“The procedure is actually quite simple: The most important thing is that the ritual must be performed at the exact same place and with the exact same set of gemstones as the binding ritual. Mischa’s stones are the ones I keep in the bowl on her grave, and as far as I know they are all still there. The place where the ritual took place is already familiar to you; you’ve been there last night.”

Will nodded, running his eyes over the page and studying the symbol.

“First we must lay out the circle; carefully, so as not to misplace a single stone. The symmetry is also very important. Then we have to lure her into the circle, though the spell works best if she comes of her own free will.”

Will looked up at him in surprise. “How are we supposed to do that?”

Hannibal lowered his head, clearly unhappy with his own response, which was: “I think we might find her cooperative with that.”

The pain behind his words made Will swallow. It must have been hard enough to lose a sister once; even harder to lose her a second time, knowing that she wanted to go. He came closer to Hannibal, cupping his face with both hands.

“It’s you she wants to be free,” he whispered, his eyes firmly fixed on Hannibal’s. “That’s why she revealed herself to me. Somehow she knew I would help you, and that’s what I will do. All of this is your creation; you’re the prisoner here, captured by this story and the monsters you’ve made. It’s time to leave now, Hannibal, and to let those spirits go. We can overcome this, together; and then we’ll create a new story. One of our own.”

When Hannibal’s lips curled into a smile again it almost felt like a miracle to Will and he leant forward to kiss him again, gently and slowly. For a short, precious moment he could catch a glimpse of a future where they were both no longer haunted by the ghosts of their pasts; but rather happy and free – and together.

“We must be careful,” Hannibal said quietly. “The spell is hard to control and this house is hundreds of years old; we might accidently set a few more ghosts free.”

Will smiled. “They don’t scare me. I’ve never been afraid of ghosts.” Then a frown appeared on his face. “What about your prisoner?”

“He needs to die, I’m afraid.” Hannibal said it with absolute determination, and lacking any emotion.

Will studied him thoughtfully, but he didn’t disagree. After all, this was actually the solution he would have suggested. “You have to do that yourself.”

“I will.”

“Is it part of the ritual?”

Hannibal raised one hand to tuck a loose curl behind Will’s ear. “No,” he said. “But I will do it all the same – for me and for her. It will give us a different kind of peace.”

 


	9. And left the ruins when the sun set

Despite Will’s desire to leave the castle immediately, it became clear pretty soon that their “escape” required careful planning, and this couldn’t be done within a few hours. So the following days they began sketching out the first lines of what would become their new life; starting with looking for flights online and booking their tickets, making a selection of belongings Hannibal wanted to take with him (which eventually led to them having to book extra luggage for the flight, because Hannibal didn’t want to relinquish any of his tailored suits, which according to Will were “all the same” and to Hannibal “each a treasure”), and organising bank account transfer. They decided against selling the castle, even if they both silently agreed on never coming back. It was the proud heritage of the Lecter family and Will knew Hannibal would rather watch it fall apart than fall into the hands of strangers who, in his opinion, weren’t worthy to even set a foot into the entrance hall. The private library with all its precious monographs and fiction would accompany them via private transportation that Hannibal had been able to organise. Will didn’t know how much this must have cost Hannibal, but one of the huge benefits of his future life was the fortune Hannibal brought into their “relationship”.

And it wasn’t all just silver and gold. As the days passed by and the time of their departure approached, Will grew more and more comfortable with the thought of having Hannibal around him all the time from now on. Not a day passed that Will wasn’t amazed to discover a new talent or habit of the other he hadn’t been aware of before: Hannibal could play the piano, sing, draw, cook, and dance – the last one was something he himself had never enjoyed until one evening when he heard Hannibal play a slow waltz on the piano and afterwards had been asked to “find some steps together”, and they had spent the entire evening practising. Hannibal was a great teacher, but even more so he was a fantastic listener. They spent the days together and occasionally the nights when, apart from further exploring the physical component of their union, they were often lying side by side for hours just talking. Will had a lot to tell: about his childhood, the ignorance of his father, tears, bullies and loneliness; and Hannibal listened. It was still a new experience for Will that someone actually cared to lend an ear to his stories and worries; and even if he wasn’t all head over heels in love with Hannibal (couldn’t imagine to call it like that, because falling in love, in his opinion, was something that teenagers did), he couldn’t help the desire and adoration that came with the way Hannibal took an interest in him. It made him feel safe not to be alone with his thoughts anymore; just as if Hannibal had joined him in the darkness he’d carried inside him for all his life. It wasn’t that he’d brought light into it, Hannibal wasn’t a light-bringer, but Will was happy not to be alone anymore, and he knew this feeling was reciprocated.

Another thing Will didn’t know about Hannibal was his love for stories. Not only ghost stories – all kinds of stories: fairytales and legends, romance and crimes, drama and comedies and historical curiosities... One evening they’d been sitting in front of the fireplace together, sharing the sofa now that they’d become physically comfortable with each other, and Hannibal had asked him if he cared for poetry. Will had honestly never had much of a connection to it, except that Keats, Shakespeare and all the other “great poets” had bored him to death at school. He’d never really understood how people could find their words so touching and beautiful; but that had been before he’d heard Hannibal read. Hannibal didn’t read Keats to him, nor Shakespeare or any other of the poets Will knew; instead he indulged him with a poem of his own. It was written in Lithuanian, so Will couldn’t understand a word; but he finally felt what other people had described to him as the magic of poetry so many times: It wasn’t what the words said; it was how they were spoken, the melody in the recitation; the feeling the reader put into each syllable, each verse. If done right, it could turn the words into a song, and Hannibal did it right. He lulled Will into the poem as he was lying with his head on Hannibal’s lap, staring into the burning logs and feeling – at home. Afterwards Hannibal had put the book down, smiled at him and then kissed him with a fieriness that scorched the withering sorrows in him that not even the anger and the fever of the past years had managed to burn. It had led to a passionate episode on the couch and afterwards they had talked and laughed about the ridiculous circumstances of their meeting and they knew that the odds had been their gods. And they were in their favour, even though they worked in mysterious ways.

Will had talked about his house and how they’d have to reorganise it when Hannibal moved in. He still wasn’t entirely sure if it could work out, but for now he loved the idea of him and Hannibal living there together so much that he blocked out the problems they maybe would have to face.

It was the evening of the 30th October, six days after their decision to leave had been made, when they knew it was time. All scores had been settles, all preparations had been made; they had talked about everything over and over again and it was a matter of now or never.

They had agreed on killing the prisoner first. It was the most practicable solution and Hannibal didn’t want to let Mischa go without having revenged her. He owed her the satisfaction to watch.

After dinner that evening, which had been a dish of roasted fish with a selection of spicy herbs and baked potatoes by the side, Will joined Hannibal in the kitchen to help him wash up and discuss the exact procedure of their undertaking; it turned out Hannibal hadn’t given it much thought, which made Will angry.

“So you just want to go down there and see what happens? That’s not how this works, Hannibal! All your life you’ve longed for revenge, lived on nothing but the thought that one day you’d make these men pay for what they did, and now you don’t even care to work out a plan? How am I supposed to think you’re taking any of this serious?” He was almost yelling at him.

“I am more than convinced that my life-time fuelled anger will provide me with all the will and strength to succeed,” Hannibal replied in his typical calmness. “I’m many times stronger than him and I’m sure he will not put up much of a fight.” However convinced his words sounded, he still hung down his head when he’d finished speaking. It confused Will.

“The truth is,” Hannibal added quietly after a while, “that I can’t stand to even think about it. It is and has been, like you said, a lifetime source of pain and anger and raw fury and I can’t think about it clear-headed. My rage, it blinds me. And that’s why it will be the thing that brings him down.”

Will raised his eyes to meet Hannibal’s, his glance growing gentler. “Do you at least know how you want to kill him?” he asked.

“With my hands,” Hannibal said.

♠♣♥♦

 

It was eerie in the cellar; the air cold and mouldy and the amount of snails on the floor, walls, and even the ceiling awoke a feeling of disgust in Will. It was the perfect place for their prisoner; a life amidst the slimy paths left by lower creatures that spent their whole life creeping before others; it was an unparalleled humiliation.

Will hadn’t been down there since that first time when he’d followed Mischa’s gemstone trail; he couldn’t stand the glance of the man’s empty eyes and his begging words. It fuelled his empathy and Will didn’t want to commiserate with him; he’d chosen a side, no time for confusion. Hannibal had been the one who’d brought down food and water during the past week, just like he’d done the past four years. Regular food for now: bread, cheese, some vegetables – Will had insisted on not giving the prisoner any meat for the idea made him feel sick for some reason. He wasn’t sure if he himself would ever find the appetite for it again.

He entered the room first, hiding the sight of Hannibal following him before the prisoner’s hopeful eyes. The cracking sound of brittle bones and snail houses breaking echoed from the walls with each of his steps. He didn’t say a word when he approached the cage; the key in his hand, shining in a bronze colour and reflecting the candle lights. The man’s eyes widened.

“T-taip!! Ačiū! Ačiū!“ he stammered, tears beginning to run down his face when Will put the key in the lock.

Some heartbeats of silence followed while the two men were just staring at each other. At the sight of the bony, shivering figure in front of him Will felt the first surge of sympathy rise inside him and at the same time he felt disgust. Something flickered to his right and a silvery shimmer flooded the room. It was Mischa, sitting on a wall protrusion, her thin legs crossed and fists clenched with her eyes fixed on Will. He didn’t know if their prisoner was able to see her, but he was clearly seeing something, because his eyes widened in horror when he turned his head; and as Hannibal stepped out of the shadows behind Will he released a bloodcurdling scream. Will didn’t have time to take a step back, because as soon as he’d turned the key the door was kicked open and the man was on him in a split-second. Will’s head hit the floor and for a moment he saw flashlights dancing around him while the man kneeled down on his chest, pushing the air out of his lungs. Will tried to scream, but it came out as nothing but a hoarse rattle as the man’s hands closed around his throat in an iron grip, his thumbs pressing down on his windpipe.

Even after all those years locked up in a cellar, the man had a surprisingly strong grip and Will, whom the attack had hit out of nowhere, was too shocked to react for a moment. In the edge of his vision he saw Mischa covering her eyes with her hands in horror. Where was Hannibal?

Will stemmed his hands against the man’s shoulders, trying to shove him off him. The man snarled and tightened his grip; Will felt his limbs weaken, his brain screaming for oxygen. Desperate and on the edge of passing out he looked for Hannibal; finally finding him standing beside the open door of the cage, his eyes widened in horror, his whole body strained and his fists clenched, but not reacting.

“H-Hannib-al,” Will wheezed, the edges of his vision blurring, and then the last thing he saw before darkness came was the man’s maniacal gaze when he lowered his head to Will’s throat and bared his teeth, ready to bite.

The bursting sound of breaking bones brought Will back into reality. The world around him was still black, but he felt air streaming back into his lungs as the heavy weight of another body was taken off his chest and the hands around his throat fell away. With each deep breath he drew his vision cleared up, revealing a ferocious and glorious scene: Hannibal stood before him, panting heavily, his arms locked around the neck of the lifeless man whose head hung down in an unnatural angle. Mischa was still sitting on the wall protrusion, peeping through her fingers at the scene of her killer’s death. Little colourful spots of light fell from her body when she shakily and silently began to sob. It was beautiful.

Hannibal let the corpse of the dead man drop to the floor before he reached out to help Will stand up. Both men were shaking and breathless.

It took them a moment to find their words again while they held each other upright; Hannibal was the first one to speak. “I’m sorry,” he gasped, “I underestimated the power my fear had over me. I didn’t intend to let him get so close.”

Will huffed out a short laugh. “Yes, me neither. It’s alright now. It’s over, Hannibal.” He smiled.

“No,” Hannibal replied quietly, his eyes turned to Mischa’s sobbing figure. “It’s not over, not entirely.”

Will’s expression grew serious. “When do you want to do it?”

“Let’s wait until the morning, when the light is better and we’ve cleared our thoughts.”

Will nodded affirmatively, but fearing that Hannibal would change his thoughts over night about setting his sister’s ghost free he insisted on them sharing a bed and he huddled against Hannibal during the dark hours, hoping it was enough. He knew the other wasn’t asleep, he himself wasn’t either, but they were lying in silence as the hours passed and when the sun rose on a new day nothing had changed.

 

♠♣♥♦

 

The morning didn’t clear the fog that was hanging low over the fields and lakes around the castle. Will stood at the window and watched the dawn colour the eastern sky red. The trees on the lawn in front of the castle were bald and the big acorn had lost the rest of its golden leaves over night. The forest however, full of conifers, still held its dark green, defiant of the approaching winter.

Will didn’t hear Hannibal coming, but he felt the warmth as the other stood behind him, wrapping his arms around Will’s waist when he joined him at the window.

“I don’t know if I want to leave,” Hannibal said pensively, his head hooked over Will’s shoulder.

“There’s only one way to find out.”

“By simply leaving,” Hannibal concluded; there was a sadness in his voice that Will hadn’t heard before.

“The castle is still yours, you could always return if you wanted to.” Will knew it wasn’t true.

“No,” Hannibal said, “I can’t.”

“No, you can’t.”

They were standing there for a while on their last morning in the castle. Will had a feeling that could almost be melancholy, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to leave either. Their whole shared story had taken place here; it was the only place where they both existed together. It was strange for him to imagine them leaving this place and entering the rest of the world; like a story winding its way out of a book, leaving the safety of the room between the book cases and then vanishing in the huge space around it that was now far too vast.

“Come on, let’s pack up our stuff. If we want to leave tonight we must start getting ready now,” Will reminded them both after a moment. Hannibal let go of him and sighed as he took one last glance out of the window. “Right,” he said.

They spent the morning and the afternoon loading up the car; Will helped Hannibal burn some of his old documents that he couldn’t take with him but were too precious to leave behind. They were no longer of use anyway. When Hannibal was about to burn his old photo albums Will stopped him.

“Give them to me, I’ll keep them safe until you feel ready to look at the pictures again,” he offered. Hannibal reluctantly agreed, even though Will’s smirk gave him the sneaking suspicion that the other only hoped to find some awkward child photos of him in the album.

When Will returned to his room to get his last suitcase he found Mischa sitting on the pendulum. She still looked fragile, but her eyes were a lot warmer – no more sadness in them. It was as if she wanted to tell him: _I’m ready_.

“We are, too,” Will whispered. He reached out his hand, even though he knew she couldn’t take it. “Come, let’s get out of here.”

 

♠♣♥♦

 

Hannibal was awaiting them at the edge of the forest, wrapped in his long coat, the ritual book in one and the bowl of gemstones in the other hand. He didn’t seem surprised to see Mischa following Will, instead he looked at her fondly.

“Ready for the next step?”

Will nodded; Mischa didn’t, but her eyes were gentle when she looked at Hannibal. _Forgiving_.

It didn’t take them long to get to the clearing; apparently Will had made a detour when he came here the last time. The pale afternoon sunlight was filtering through the trees and made the scenery look so peaceful, so quiet; a perfect place for something magical to happen. Even the urging angel statue had lost most of its creepiness. It was a pity, found Will, that the fireflies weren’t around at that hour of the day. He’d have loved to see their dance one more time.

Hannibal went up to the fountain, kneeling down in front of it to make some space clear of leaves. Will watched him lay out a circle of stones, perfectly round, the sunlight reflecting in the shiny surface of the gems. When he’d finished his work he handed the book to Will, already opened on the page with the magic circle.

“Will you help me complete this?” he asked, his eyes already wet.

“Of course,” Will whispered, suddenly everything of this felt too real. He’d never had a sister, but he knew how losing someone felt like and he could only imagine what it must feel like for Hannibal; his sister watching as he opened the final door for her; both preparing for their paths to finally divide.

He kneeled down next to Hannibal, placed the open book on the ground between them and started laying out the inner lines of the circle: the smaller circles and triangles, interlacing them to form a new symbol; always careful to keep it symmetrical. Mischa had sat down on the edge of the fountain’s basin and was watching them curiously.

When the magic circle was complete both men took a step back to look at their work. It was beautiful and absolutely symmetrical. More perfect even than the depiction in the book.

“What happens now?” Will asked. They hadn’t talked through the entire procedure of the ritual.

“She needs to take up her place in the middle of the circle,” Hannibal explained. “Then I speak the spell and then –,“ he paused, then added more quietly “Then she will be gone. If everything goes right.”

Mischa observed the circle for a while, then tilted her head and smiled at Hannibal as she slid down from the edge of the basin to set her feet amidst the gemstones. She nodded.

When Will looked at Hannibal he found him in tears, but also smiling. Slowly he handed Will the book he’d been holding and approached his sister, falling to his knees in front of the circle.

“Mischa, brangioji,” he whispered, tears running down his face as he spoke. Will couldn’t understand what he said to her, but when he’d finished and Mischa slung her thin arms around Hannibal’s neck for a goodbye, he found his own cheeks equally wet. The moment lasted for a while until the girl let go of her brother and Hannibal stood upright again. They both looked at Will as if they were awaiting his approval. He smiled as a response and Hannibal began to read.

The words he spoke didn’t even sound Lithuanian, but rather old and magic. A language that wasn’t spoken anymore, only living on in books and legends. During the whole ritual Mischa’s eyes were fixed on Will’s and Will’s on hers; her glance was thankful, peaceful, unafraid of what awaited her. When Hannibal spoke the final words and slowly closed the book the forest around them was silent and for a second Will believed that it hadn’t worked.

But then the gemstones began to sparkle, brighter than the fading sunlight, brighter even than Mischa’s silvery ghost body, and filled the entire clearing with light. In the centre of the circle Mischa closed her eyes and it looked as if she was taking a breath when all the light suddenly collapsed in the place where she stood and without another sound she was gone.

Will expected something to happen, expected the castle to break down behind them, swallowing the forest and the premises, and him, and Hannibal; put a proper ending to their story. But nothing happened.

Hannibal stood frozen on the spot; the book slipped from his hands and fell to the ground. Will didn’t try to catch it. Instead he just pulled Hannibal into a hug and held him until his breathing had calmed.

“Thank you,” Hannibal whispered into his ear before they parted; the relief clearly visible on both of their faces.

When Will bent down to pick up the gemstones Hannibal held him back. “Not yet,” he said, “there is one more thing I must do.”

He kneeled down on the forest ground once more and began re-arranging the stones, changing the symmetry of the circle until Will recognised the familiarity again.

“Bind another soul?” he asked.

Hannibal nodded smiling. “There is one more on the loose here. And I won’t let it find its peace.”

 

♠♣♥♦

 

It was an ordeal to carry the dead man’s body all the way to the forest, even though they were two and the man was small and emaciated. The forest was already in twilight when they reached the open clearing for a second time, even though no fireflies were in the air yet. Will helped Hannibal drag the corpse into the middle of the magic circle; he didn’t fit in entirely, but Hannibal said it didn’t matter. The most important thing was that the head and the heart were within the lines, as they were the residence of the soul.

Will handed Hannibal the book once more, opened on a different page now: The one with the binding spell. Hannibal smiled as he took it.

“That’s the last thing I can do for her,” he said. “To make sure he’ll always stay a prisoner. Nobody will ever set him free again.”

He began to read once more; the spell was a lot longer than the last one and equally mystical. Will adopted Mischa’s position sitting on the edge of the basin next to the circle as Hannibal walked around reciting the words. When he’d finished there was another moment of silence. Then, almost undetectable, a thin greenish fume streamed out of the man’s dead face, growing bigger and bigger and began to shape a figure that hovered above the corpse. It took another minute or two until the shape of a human body was recognisable. The ghost body was smaller than the man originally was, but it had the same emaciated and crippled figure; his face was contorted with pain and horror.

 “And so the hunter becomes the haunted,” Hannibal said, looking satisfied; then he pointed at the book. “I’m going to burn this. Erase every possibility that it could be found and put to use by anyone.”

They removed the corpse from the magic circle and hastily buried it under a pile of sticks and leaves. Who cared if he decayed in the open? Nobody would enter these woods any time soon.

The gemstones however they took with them. As a memory.

 

♠♣♥♦

 

When they returned to the castle the sun was already setting. They loaded the rest of their bags into the car along with a box of food for the journey; they would have to drive the whole night through.

Will leaned against the car to take one last look at the place where all of it had happened. It looked so unreal from that distance.

“It’s a beautiful castle,” he said pensively.

“Only superficially,” Hannibal replied joining him, “In its construction it’s a ruin and it will all fall apart very soon. There are parts of the castle that I haven’t entered in years because it was too risky; they are permanently in danger of collapsing. Give it one more decade or two and it will be nothing more than a huge pile of debris. “

“The pride of your ancestors; there will be nothing left of it.”

“It’s not my pride, so I don’t care. Nothing that I care about is left at this place.” He smiled at Will.

“Do you believe that history can repeat itself and that maybe we’ll all come back again one day?” Will asked.

“If you’re talking about Mischa I can only say that I don’t believe in reincarnation; but I believe that every end is a beginning.”

With these words Hannibal turned his eyes away from the castle and got into the car on the driver’s side. Will followed soon, not entirely able to suppress a smile when thinking about the days that were lying before them; and when the sun had set they drove off, leaving the ruins of the haunted castle behind.

* * *

 

 

_The scythe and the pendulum_

_and her eyes so sad_

_The hunter and the haunted_

_and the tale they shared_

_They revelled in crimson_

_and the night turned red_

_as they captured in stone_

_a dream of their own_

_and left the ruins when the sun set_

 

_ _

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ačiū = Thank you  
> brangioji = darling
> 
> Did I say 7 chapters at the beginning? Well, it's a bit longer now. ;) Thank you all for reading this fic! I have absolutely loved writing it and now I'm a bit sad that it's over, because it has been such a big part of my life this November.  
> At this point I take the deepest bow before my two lovely beta-readers [MissDisoriental](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MissDisoriental) and [TheSilverQueen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSilverQueen/), who not only checked every single chapter for errors, but also motivated and supported me all the time! Thank you a thousand times! This wouldn't have been possible without you! :*  
> I'm always curious what my readers think, so please let me know what you liked or didn't like about the story.  
> I'm going to be at RDC3 in February! Anyone of you coming, too? I'd love to meet more Fannibals! :)
> 
> Come find me on [Tumblr](http://cervolina.tumblr.com/)!


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